Co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan (Photo: asia.nikkei.com)Singapore (VNA) – Singapore's tech unicorn Grab will remain focusedon Southeast Asian markets even after it goes public in the US, co-founderand CEO Anthony Tan told Asia Nikkei Review.
Noting thatinvestors describe Southeast Asia's most valuable unlisted company as acombination of tech names like Uber Technologies and Ant Financial, Tanstressed Grab will scale up its existing core businesses such as food deliveryand digital finance.
On April 13, Grab announced that it would go public through a merger with aspecial purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Tan added the company will use the capital "to build the lowestcost and the most efficient delivery network" by investing in maps andother technology as well as "to revolutionise mobile payments,financial services and digital banking."
Through the SPAC, Grab will merge with Nasdaq-listed Altimeter GrowthCorp., which was set up under the US-based Altimeter Capital, in coming months.The listing is expected to value Grab at 39.6 billion USD and willprovide as much as 4.5 billion USD for the company.
Grab's main competitor Sea, Singapore-headquartered and New York-listed onlinegaming and e-commerce giant, is already beginning to expand into Latin Americanmarkets such as Brazil. This poses a question that Grab may also expand out ofthe region.
Tan said that Southeast Asia has nearly double the population of the US, with670 million people, and its adoption of online services, from mobility todelivery to e-payment, is still low./.
VNA
