Booking Holdings invests $200M in SE Asian ride-hail company Grab

Booking Holdings is investing $200 million in and creating a strategic partnership with Grab Holdings, a Singapore-based on-demand transportation platform that operates in 235 cities in eight countries across Southeast Asia.

Grab has raised more than $2 billion for its current round of financing - including $1 billion from Toyota that came in June - and is on track to raise over $3 billion by the end of this year. In March, Grab bought Uber’s business in Southeast Asia, although that deal is being challenged by regulators in Singapore.

As part of this deal, Bookings Holdings’ brands will be able to offer on-demand transportation services through its apps, powered by Grab. And the Grab app will now offer users the ability to book accommodations across the globe via Booking.com and Agoda and to pay using the GrabPay digital wallet.

"Grab has scaled impressively across Southeast Asia over the last few years, establishing itself as a recognized leader in an increasingly competitive space, and we're excited to partner with them to build even better travel experiences through technology,” says Todd Henrich, senior vice president and head of corporate development for Booking Holdings.

This deal comes three months after Booking invested $500 million in China-based ground transportation company Didi Chuxing.

In addition to ride-hailing, Grab offers food and package delivery, mobile payments and financial services. It currently operates in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.

"We are delighted to work with Booking Holdings to give our users even more everyday services to choose from when they open the Grab app,” says Ming Maa, president of Grab.

“The online travel market in Southeast Asia is set to nearly triple by 2025, and we see numerous synergies between travel and transportation that will allow us to capitalize on this huge opportunity. As a global travel leader, Booking's investment into Grab is a vote of confidence in our continued ability to execute and expand into different O2O [online-to-offline] verticals and roll them out across the 235 cities in which we operate."