Grab’s new accelerator Velocity will seek to partner with eight to ten growth-stage startups over the next 24 months and may invest in select startups

Southeast Asia’s leading ride-hailing company Grab, which now has ventured into multiple verticals, including online payments, finance, shopping, logistics, and food delivery, today announced the launch Grab Ventures, an innovation arm aimed at discovering and growing Southeast Asia’s next-generation technology leaders and to promote innovation and digitisation in the region.

Grab Ventures will work with private sector firms as well as government agencies in Singapore and across the region to support growth-stage technology companies by helping them develop and scale technologies that will solve transportation, logistics, food and payments challenges in Southeast Asia.

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“As Grab turns six, we are experiencing a period of solid growth. Grab is ramping up innovation in-house to scale faster as the leading O2O mobile platform in Southeast Asia. We’re always open to partnerships where it makes sense for our business, and will look to partner or invest in the right company that enables Grab to expand our business quickly, explore new technologies and build new capabilities,” said Anthony Tan, Group CEO and Co-founder of Grab.

Grab Ventures will allow Grab to rapidly develop new technology capabilities and build fast-growing businesses in-house, as it continues to add new services to its O2O mobile platform. Grab has already invested in GrabCycle, a marketplace for multiple personal mobility partners; Kudo, Indonesia’s leading O2O platform; Drive.ai, AI solutions for autonomous vehicles; and iKaaz, an emerging markets mobile payments platform.

Additionally, Grab Ventures said it will launch ‘Velocity’, an accelerator programme for growth-stage startups looking to expand across Southeast Asia. It will seek to partner with eight to ten growth-stage startups over the next 24 months and may invest in select startups that exhibit strong synergies with Grab. It is looking for startups operating in sectors such as transport, food, logistics and financial services.

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Companies interested in applying for the Velocity accelerator programme can visit ventures.grab.com for more information.

“We’ve stood on the shoulders of giants and we now hope to pave the way for other Southeast Asian tech companies to rise and achieve success. Grab will play an active role to grow and foster the region’s startup ecosystem. We’ve attracted world-class engineering to Southeast Asia, and developed a tech platform with valuable assets like our huge base of drivers and delivery partners, as well as products which will help partners scale faster. It’s about enablement, and we invite growth-stage startups that want to expand across Southeast Asia to partner with Grab Ventures,” Tan added.

In Singapore, Grab is partnering with government agencies such as the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) and Enterprise SG for capability development, market access and startup facilitation, regulatory support and grants.

Also Read: Grab acquires Bangalore-based payments startup iKaaz

In addition, EDB and EDBI are also joining the Velocity programme as early partners, with a shared goal of supporting the growth of tech companies that could solve challenges in or revolutionise the digital, logistics, transportation and fintech sectors with their game-changing technology.

Grab claims that it more than doubled the growth of mobile app downloads within the past year from 45 million in June 2017 to 100 million to date. Grab is now present in 217 cities across Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.

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Source: e27