Southeast Asia-focused on demand taxi hailing service GrabTaxi has raised Series A investment led by Singapore-based Vertex Venture Holdings, and a group of angel investors from Malaysia.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a company official told Tnooz that the investment is an USD "eight-figure-amount".
Local media reports the funding amount as $10 million, but GrabTaxi calls it "inaccurate".
This fund will be used to hire new talent to strengthen its presence in existing markets and expand into new markets in Southeast Asia.
Using GrabTaxi's mobile apps, customers can browse for nearest taxis, request a taxi pickup, interact with the driver, know the approximate fare for a trip, and rate driver service.
Currently, the company operates in Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.
Founder and group CEO Anthony Tan, says:
"From our humble beginnings, GrabTaxi has become the largest and most widely used taxi booking mobile app in the region. In fact, we have fifteen times more booking volume than our nearest competitors.
"Our own regional survey showed that we’re at the top of our consumer’s minds. More than 50% of them aren’t aware of any other service available except for GrabTaxi."
GrabTaxi declined to comment when asked about its nearest competitors. However, competitors of GrabTaxi in the region include Uber, EasyTaxi (Rocket Internet-backed), TaxiMonger, and MoobiTaxi.
The company's ‘share your ride’ feature allows passengers to share their trip details to social media or via messaging apps with friends and family to track them. The company claims this feature is an extra security for passengers.
Tan adds:
"It is our policy to suspend any drivers and passengers found guilty of wrongdoings upon thorough investigation. Our stakeholders are always pleasantly surprised when we call them to say that action has been taken."
Drivers under the GrabTaxi network have experienced a 30% to 300% increase in revenue, according to the company.
The company claims that a taxi booking happens in GrabTaxi system every two seconds.
Founded in 2011, the company has 20,000 taxi drivers on its system, 250,000 monthly users, and its mobile apps have been downloaded more than a million times.