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The story
Founding and growth
The idea of creating a taxi-booking mobile app for Southeast Asia came from Anthony Tan (Chinese: 陈炳耀; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Péng-iāu; pinyin: Chén Bǐngyào) while he was at Harvard Business School. He launched the MyTeksi app in Malaysia in 2012 together with Tan Hooi Ling, another Harvard graduate. MyTeksi was started with an initial grant of US$25,000 from Harvard Business School and Tan's personal capital.
GrabTaxi expanded to the Philippines in August 2013, and to Singapore and Thailand in October of the same year. In 2014, GrabTaxi further continued its growth and expansion to new countries: first launching in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in February, and Jakarta in Indonesia in June. In November 2014, GrabTaxi launched its first GrabBike service in Ho Chi Minh City as a trial service.
By 2015, GrabBike's motorcycle service rides had spread throughout Vietnam and Indonesia. In February 2015, the company launched GrabCar+ in the Philippines. In November 2015, Grab launched its GrabExpress courier service. In January 2016, GrabTaxi was rebranded as "Grab" with a new, redesigned logo.
Launch of super-app in Southeast Asia
In October 2016, Grab added an in-app instant messaging feature called "GrabChat" to allow simple communication between riders and drivers and translate messages if the set languages of the driver and passenger are different. In December 2016, it launched GrabShare taxi and car-sharing services.
In February 2017, Grab launched the GrabCoach service for booking large passenger vehicles. In March 2017, Grab introduced GrabFamily for young children below 7 years old, to fulfill regulations where children under 1.35 metres must be placed on a child booster seat or child restraint.
In April 2017, Grab confirmed the acquisition of Indonesian online payment startup Kudo which was integrated with Grab's payment system.
In November 2017, Grab launched GrabPay payment service as a digital payment service among third-party merchants.
In March 2018, Grab merged with Uber's Southeast Asian operations. As part of the acquisition, Grab took over Uber's assets and operations, including Uber Eats operations in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, which led to Grab's expansion of food delivery services. Grab also launched its eScooter rental service known as GrabWheels in March 2018. Uber initially received a 27.5% stake in Grab as part of the deal; as of 2025, Uber holds a 13.71% stake, remaining the largest individual shareholder.
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In May 2018, Grab launched GrabFood food delivery service. In October 2018, Grab launched GrabExpress courier service. In 2018, Grab also launched Grab Financial, a financial arm of the company. In November 2018, Grab invested in Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group's Ovo platform.
In February 2019, the company launched GrabPet in Singapore which uses Grab drivers who have received training in pet handling and welcome animals in their vehicles.
In April 2019, Grab launched its first cloud kitchen, GrabKitchen, in Indonesia under its food delivery service. 50 GrabKitchens were set up in six Southeast Asian countries within a year. Grab also launched their super app in April 2019 to consolidate its online services into one platform.
In February 2020, Grab launched GrabCare for healthcare workers in Singapore, starting with 24-hour services to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and National Centre for Infectious Diseases. Grab also expanded its GrabMart and GrabAssistant services to more cities and countries to meet increased demand for online food and grocery deliveries.
In April 2020, top management salaries were cut by 20 percent and employees were encouraged to take up voluntary no-pay leave in an effort to manage costs during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, Grab retrenched 360 employees, which was just under 5 percent of the total headcount across its Southeast Asia offices at the time. In November 2020, Grab announced the launch of its Tech Center in Jakarta, Indonesia for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
Expansion into banking and autonomous vehicles
In December 2020, Grab was granted a digital bank licence from Singapore together with Singtel.
Grab debuted on Nasdaq in December 2021 following a SPAC with Altimeter Growth Corp. The company acquired Malaysia's Jaya Grocer by the end of 2021.
In June 2022, the company introduced GrabMaps mapping and location technology for use in "hyperlocal" routes in Southeast Asian cities.
In August 2022, the company launched its digital bank business, GXS Bank, together with Singtel.
In June 2023, Grab announced an 11 percent reduction of its workforce at the time.
GrabCab received a 10-year street-hail operator licence from Singapore's Land Transport Authority in 2025. It became the sixth taxi operator in the country. Operations began in July that year.
In July 2025, Grab piloted the first digital cycle rickshaw service in Vietnam known as Grab Cyclo. Later that year, the company announced that it was working on a drone commercial delivery service in the Philippines.
In April 2025, Grab released AI Merchant Assistant and AI Driver Companion, two artificial intelligence-based tools developed in collaboration with OpenAI and Anthropic. The former offers business insights to merchants while the latter provides predictive analytics related to high-demand areas and voice reporting to drivers, allowing them to report on road conditions. Grab had previously announced partnerships with autonomous vehicle developers including Motional and WeRide. In December 2025, Grab announced their strategic partnership with Momenta to deploy autonomous driving technology to Southeast Asia.
In November 2025, the Land Transport Authority of Singapore approved Grab and its partner WeRide to conduct autonomous vehicle testing. Grab announced the launch of a three-month drone delivery pilot in Tanjong Rhu, Singapore, which started internal testing as of 7 January 2026.
In January 2026, it was announced that Grab had acquired Infermove, a China-based artificial intelligence robotics developer, to support its delivery operations. In February 2026, it was announced that Grab was acquiring Stash, a U.S.-based digital investment platform. During GrabX, an annual product conference, the company announced multiple AI features for its customers, drivers and merchants. Among the features was a group ride to split fares between travelers, shopping and navigation assistance, tap to pay and loan options. Anthony Tan stated that AI "shouldn't be limited to only those who can afford it" and "everyone, regardless of their technical skills, should have the opportunity to jump on this AI wave and not be left behind".
From Wikipedia’s article on Grab Holdings, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8