By Susan Cunningham
Forbes Asia

This story appears in the March 2018 issue of Forbes Asia as “Up for Grabs”

When Grab closed a $2.5 billion fundraising round in January, the valuation of the ride-hailing company not only rose north of $6 billion, according to Pitchbook. It also lifted cofounder Anthony Tan onto the list of Malaysia’s 50 richest. He debuts with an estimated net worth of $300 million. Led by SoftBank and Didi Chuxing, the investment was Southeast Asia’s biggest single venture-capital fundraising round ever. Other investors include Hyundai Motor and Toyota Tsusho.

Tan, 36, the startup’s chief executive, could have enjoyed a cushy ride with his family’s auto-sales business, run by his father, Tan Heng Chew, and two uncles. (Heng Chew and his brothers made the list the last five years before falling off this year.) But six years ago he teamed up with a Harvard Business School classmate, Tan Hooi Ling (no relation), to launch a taxi-hailing application in their home city of Kuala Lumpur. They first called it MyTeksi.

Myanmar and Cambodia

With eight investment rounds under its belt, Grab has branched out into services for private cars, motorcycle taxis, carpooling and goods delivery while making an ever increasing investment in mobile-software research and development. It offers transportation services in 168 cities in eight Southeast Asian countries, having added Cambodia and Myanmar in 2017. 

Last year it also plunged into the fierce online payments fray with a mobile wallet feature for the whole region. Grab has been headquartered in Singapore since 2014. What’s more, Tan has taken Singaporean citizenship, according to a Grab filing with the Singapore government last year, but Forbes Asia considers him Malaysian for purposes of the Malaysia’s 50 richest list. Tan did not respond to questions from Forbes Asia. MORE