Southeast Asian ride-sharing platform Grab announced today it will acquire Indonesian online payment startup Kudo for an undisclosed amount.
Grab said in a statement the acquisition marks its first investment of the $700 million it committed to investing in Indonesia over the next four years, as part of its “Grab 4 Indonesia’ 2020 plan. The country, with a population of 250 million, is Grab’s largest market.
In mid-February, Reuters reported Grab was close to finalising a deal to buy Kudo, the largest online to offline e-commerce platform in Indonesia, for $100 million.
After closing the deal, Grab said the Kudo team and platform will be integrated with its mobile payments platform GrabPay. The two companies said they plan to explore opportunities to expand Kudo’s financial services to include insurance and consumer loans.
Kudo CEO Albert Lucius (pictured right) said given GrabPay is already one of the most widely-used payments platforms in Indonesia: “this acquisition creates immediate synergies with our existing business.”
“We are excited to work together to bring the ease and convenience of cashless payments to more Indonesians than ever before”.
Lucius signed the acquisition agreement with Grab CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan (pictured left).
Kudo, which was set up in 2014, targets customers without bank accounts and allows them make online purchases through agents. It has a network of more than 400,000 authorised agents in 500 towns and cities across Indonesia.
Grab operates in 39 cities across six countries with more 710,000 drivers in its network. It claims a 95 per cent market share of third-party taxi-hailing apps and more than 50 per cent market share in private cars in the six markets.
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