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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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The startup has now raised , a huge sum, but one that pales in comparison to the fundraising activity posted by Ola itself. Ola, also an India-based company,�� has . Somewhat ironically, the elder Ola recently raised , though from a different investor set.

SoftBank has now backed both Ola and Ola electric.

The capital for Ola Electric follows a somewhat new trend in the ride-hailing space, namely none-core parts of ride-hailing companies raising capital for themselves. , another ride-hailing leader, recently raised money for its own self-driving efforts, for example.

Uber expects its self-driving efforts will help drive its ride-hailing business, just as Ola likely hopes that its electric car spinout will help speed its own core business over time.

Capital is the lifeblood of ride-hailing companies, a competitive and expensive industry. Given a requisite capital thirst stemming from core operations, competing firms in the ride-hailing industry are looking for alternative ways to finance their non-core efforts. It’s akin to Google no longer incubating the activities that now fall under the Alphabet umbrella, but, instead of paying for it themselves, recruiting an external party to do so.

Timings, Markets

As , the investment into Ola Electric comes at a propitious moment, given changes in India itself:

The infusion comes as New Delhi looks to take a  in the country as it attempts to curtail air pollution and carbon emissions. The country has set an ambitious goal to convert 40% of the fleet to electric by 2026.

If that sounds familiar, it should. China is also working to change the makeup of cars that run inside its own borders, making a push towards electrification that could curtail emissions and also power new domestic business.

But that effort has only gone so smoothly. Since going public, China-based electric car company has struggled, losing most of its public market value. Other firms working on electric cars in China have fallen prey to what “intensifying competition and subsidy cuts.”

It’s unclear if the issues electric vehicle firms in China are contending with this year will crop up in India. For now, optimism seems high. Indeed, Ola Ola Electric earlier this year with $56 million in capital. Now with $250 million more, the firm has lots of money to show that it can power itself.

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Happy Tuesday from the blisteringly cold East Coast. It’s so frigid here that I wouldn’t mind a recession as I have no intention of ever leaving the house. So whatever , I refuse to worry.

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Regardless, we have three key pieces of news from the overlapping magisteria of technology companies and money: the birth of a new unicorn, the death of an old unicorn, and a double-down bet by the tech industry on scooters. Let’s get into it.

Unicorn Death, Unicorn Birth

While the idea of “one in, one out” is , it’s utter bunk in practice. Except for when reality lines up with cliche. Days like today, for example.

Starting with the out, is dead. The firm, which , is now essentially bankrupt. According , the startup, which was once worth as much as $1.5 billion, burned through “an emergency $5 million round of funding” after losing $44 million in calendar 2017. A pivot to the business space wasn’t enough to save the augmented-reality shop.

Given the lingering nascency of AR even as VR seems to , Blippar’s end isn’t a huge surprise.

But the result must be a material disappointment for its investors (, , , ) who are now likely to see little for their capital. Precisely why the company died is more complicated than an undeveloped market, however. It seems that investor in-fighting to Blippar’s death.

Moving on to the in, say hello to what I suspect is the world’s newest unicorn: . The UK-based AI chip company raised $200 million at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation ($1.7 billion post-money), picking up cash from ,��,��,�� and , among others. A host of folks wanted a piece of the company.

According to Bloomberg, the firm the $1 billion valuation mark the last time it raised, . Sequoia led that one, but Graphcore’s prior valuation means that its horn is new.

So, that’s one new unicorn and one dead unicorn. One in, one out.

Scooters

Another supergiant round caught my eye this morning, a $100 million investment into , an India scooter company. Before the new capital, Vogo had raised a mere $8.1 million (), making the new infusion huge in comparison.

There’s more to chew on here than just new monies for two-wheeled mobile delights. As :

“We’re familiar with  cozying up to scooter startups — �����Ի��� — but over in India, the U.S. firm’s key rival is hatching a major alliance of its own it invested $100 million in scooter rental startup .”

Russell goes on to note that Ola took part in Vogo’s preceding . What all that means is that India, a , is now more competitive (Uber is in the country). For the American company hurtling towards an IPO, the news can’t be welcome.

Uber is rumored to be a potential acquirer for domestic scooter companies and has made its own strategic investment into Lime, a global micro mobility company most famous for scooters. Perhaps the Ola-Vogo deal will make that outcome more likely?

Anyway, that’s enough for one morning. And it’s quite a lot for the day a week before Christmas. Like we’ve been saying, so much for a seasonal slowdown.

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