Japanese automotive giant Toyota has made a strategic investment in South East Asia taxi-hailing service Grab.
Grab, which competes with Uber, announced on Wednesday that Toyota is investing in a $2 billion (£1.6 billion) plus funding round that was announced in July. Other investors in the round include Japanese tech firm SoftBank and its Chinese equivalent, Didi Chuxing.
Grab—which currently offers services in 87 cities across Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar—has raised around $3.5 billion (£2.7 billion), according to Crunchbase.
It said in July that it will use the money raised in the latest funding round to fuel its growth in South East Asia (home to over 600 million people) and invest in GrabPay, its mobile payments platform.
"Through this collaboration with Grab, we would like to explore new ways of delivering secure, convenient and attractive mobility services to our fleet customers in Southeast Asia." said Shigeki Tomoyama, senior managing officer of Toyota Motor Corporation.
