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The company announced that $2 billion of ’s previous financial commitments will be targeted towards its well-established Indonesian operations. Indonesia is Grab’s largest market and also the home of its biggest regional competitor, .

SoftBank CEO said there’s plans for a second Grab HQ in Indonesia, . While the $2 billion capital commitment to the country — made possible by SoftBank — isn’t new, Son reportedly said that “on top of that, we will invest more.”

For SoftBank, which recently announced a second Vision Fund, making bets on ride-hailing companies isn’t a recent trend. Back in 2018, the Japanese conglomerate invested roughly $7 billion in Uber. SoftBank also invested in China’s and . One analyst put SoftBank’s stakes in these three companies as worth anywhere between $22.1 billion and $26.5 billion, .

As we’ve covered time, time, and time again, Singapore’s Go-Jek and Indonesia’s Grab keep adding cash to their seemingly never-ending funding rounds (Grab’s Series H and Go Jek’s Series F.) It’s because ride-hailing, you guessed it, costs a lot of money. But, as our EIC Alex Wilhelm tell us, the industry can wrack up billions in bets and hopes without even proving profit. It shows that some investors are okay with a future of potential profit, as they stay distracted by booming growth in the present.

Plus, as TechCrunch’s , this capital commitment could help Grab be in better cahoots with the local Indonesian government and the tech scene there, since the announcement was made after a meeting between the company, SoftBank, Indonesia’s president and other high-ranking officials.

To wrap up with some context, Grab and Go-Jek are both barreling toward become ‘super-apps’  in Southeast Asia and beyond. I’m betting it won’t be too long until we’re back here reporting on the new cash, or promises, the companies make to do so.

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These aren’t the startups of the week, they’re features rolled out by ride-hailing companies as they barrel toward becoming the “super app” of their respective regions. To combat persistent losses from their core business, ride-hailing companies are expanding to other verticals in hopes of grabbing some extra revenue. And news this week reminds us that expansion requires a ton of capital across the world,

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Back to back, Singapore’s and Indonesia’s kept adding cash to their seemingly never-ending funding rounds. That apparent snowball effect is good for China’s , which yesterday reportedly made plans to raise $2 billion from investors, .

The Startups

Both in terms of timing their press releases and targeting customers, Go-Jek and Grab overlap often. Grab, the larger of the two ride-hailing companies, recently got money from credit-rating company Experian to add onto its .

Grab’s Series H has been racking up investors since June 12, 2018. In addition to , it has investors as diverse as , , , , and .

Go-Jek, , just added to its list of investors for its Series F this week. And about a week prior, a trio of Mitsubishi corporations added capital into that same round, too.

All this news, mind you, was on the heels of that earlier Grab announcement.

And amidst those two news items, the that Didi is eyeing a $2 billion round, which would bring its valuation up to $62 billion.

A Super App Future

In some ways, these companies are all aiming to become the “super app” of the region they dominate. Go-Jek and Grab’s investor pool includes credit lenders and other software companies, and partnerships derived from those investments are commonplace.

Plus, Didi is expanding to help its customers not just get from point A to point B, but to aid in vehicle maintenance and leasing as well.

While we can’t predict the outcome of what it means to spend money to expand into different verticals, we can point to anecdotal evidence.

To pick on we can see that even for a global market leader, ride-hailing is an expensive path.

Uber started , and now works with more than 80,000 restaurants. Uber Eats had revenue growth of 149 percent compared to the year prior. That still only accounted for 13 percent of the overall company’s total 2018 revenue. It shows that in some cases branching out will help, but may not be a saving grace. Beyond that it’s jumping into , and autonomous vehicles. As for the wealth of that latter point, that Uber’s self-driving car unit burned $20 million a month.

According to the company’s  S-1, Uber’s 2018 operating loss came to $3.03 billion. That’s down from the year before, but remains a staggering deficit.

So it makes sense that in a crowd with significant losses, all racing towards diversification, private ride-hailing companies are looking to raise as much as they can.

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This announcement comes days after its Indonesian rival, raised $100 million as part of an ongoing Series F. So far, Go-Jek’s series F is totaling up to $1.2 billion, according to .

In the table below, we show the many tranches of Grab’s Series H round.

According to Grab CEO , Softbank’s involvement will help it give users more choice and convenience, and “enhance income opportunities.”

, a partner at Investment Advisers, says the investment will help Grab pursue “new opportunities across on-demand mobility, delivery and financial services as it continues to grow its offline-to-online platform across Southeast Asia.”

While it started as a ride-hailing company, Grab also grew to include food and parcel delivery, bike and car rentals, and payments. It also from just Singapore to Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Back in December, Crunchbase Reporter Savannah Dowling tracked Grab’s seemingly never-ending Series H. All within the same round, the company got money from a range of companies: automakers like . and . Also involved were big tech players like . Before SoftBank, the company’s most recent infusion of cash came from Yamaha Motor Co. – an investment of $150 million.

Notably, this round will be used to invest more heavily in Indonesia,said. It doesn’t hurt that Grab’s top competitor,is based in Indonesia.  As we’ve reported previously, Go-Jek started off as a motorcycle hailing application and then included services like grocery and pharmacy delivery. Like Grab, it’s expanding in Southeast Asia.

In the meantime, Grab says its Indonesian business revenue more than doubled in 2018.   it holds 60 percent of the two-wheel market and 70 percent of the four-wheel market on Go-Jek’s home turf.

that despite this new cash, the round isn’t over until it says it’s over. So with $4.5 billion and counting, we’ll keep our eyes on Grab (and rival Go-Jek) to see who becomes Southeast Asia’s next “WeChat” first.

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