Uber’s Southeast Asian rival Grab has acquired Kudo, Indonesia based mobile payments platform to boost its mobile payments platform. The size of deal hasn’t been disclosed by either companies however, it was previously reported by TechCrunch and Reuters that the deal size is expected to be around USD 100 million.
Grab CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan (left), together with Albert Lucius, CEO of Kudo (right)
Kudo’s O2O (online to offline) platform allows Indonesia’s unbanked customers to shop online by connecting them with online merchants and service providers via its network of over 400K agents spread across 500 towns and cities in Indonesia. In its statement, Grab shares that this makes Kudo a suitable partner as GrabPay has strong reach across Indonesia’s major cities while Kudo has reach in smaller cities and rural areas. Grab also plans to support and accelerate the expansion of Kudo’s network of agents while leveraging the same to get new riders and drivers on Grab. The two also plan to explore opportunities to grow Kudo’s financial services offering including insurance and customer loans.
“Kudo is revolutionizing how consumers in Indonesia pay for goods and services, and we are very pleased to welcome them to the Grab family,” said Ming Maa, President of Grab. “Combining Kudo’s innovative O2O ecommerce solution and extensive agent network with GrabPay and Grab’s massive and active customer base will advance our mission of providing millions of people across Indonesia with increased access to convenient cashless payments and new income opportunities, while also unlocking compelling new ways to boost online spending. Kudo’s integration represents an important first step in our ‘Grab 4 Indonesia’ plan to provide all Indonesians an opportunity to move into the digital economy.”
“Grab shares our vision of creating payments solutions that empower the unbanked to benefit from the rapid growth of ecommerce, and we look forward to embarking on the next stage of our growth as part of the Grab team,” said Albert Lucius, CEO of Kudo. “Given that 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.”
This acquisition marks the first investment of Grab’s recently announced ‘Grab 4 Indonesia’ 2020 master plan, a commitment to invest US$700 million in Indonesia over the next four years to further develop its digital economy through the promotion of technology innovation, driving ‘technopreneurship’ in mobile technologies and financial services, and improving access to mobile payments and financing opportunities.
