How Grab made its way to the brink of a landmark public listing

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Hello readers,

History, as a school subject, tends to be pretty divisive – you either loved it or hated it. Me? I belong to the former group. It was an interest that was nurtured from a young age by the entire Horrible Histories series of books and fleshed out by other media such as HBO’s Band of Brothers and many a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole.

One thing I found out: You can learn a lot by looking at what’s come before. And for today’s featured premium story, we’re doing just that for Grab. Take a visual stroll through the history of the Southeast Asian unicorn as it sits on the brink of an upcoming public market debut.

Today, we look at:

• A visual recounting of Grab’s rise through the years
• Lazada takes steps to become a super app
• Other newsy highlights such as Meituan’s bid to raise US$10 billion and Tencent being a cleaner cloud provider than Alibaba

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Remember the time

Have you ever wondered what it would take to bring a company to a US$40 billion valuation? That’s how much Grab will potentially be worth, and to think the Southeast Asian super app started with a US$25,000 grant from Harvard Business School. Talk about a massive return on investment.

• Stuck in the middle with you: Grab launched (as GrabTaxi) in Malaysia just two years after Gojek began operations in Indonesia and a year before Uber touched down in Singapore.
• Ticket to ride: By 2017, Grab’s driver partners had completed 1 billion rides.
• Plastic love: Among a variety of expansions, the company launched its GrabPay card in partnership with Mastercard in 2019, allowing users to make digital transactions offline.

Read more: Visual: Tracking Grab’s journey to a $40 billion valuation

STARTUP SPOTLIGHT

Open the Lazada app… to get a cab

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