This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 30, 2019 - January 5, 2020

NOBODY saw this coming — that an app created in a tiny rented storage space in Malaysia would one day become Southeast Asia’s leading everyday app, providing transport, logistics and financial services to millions of users across the region and contributing US$5.8 billion (RM23.9 billion) to Southeast Asia’s economy in a year (ended March 2019). Today, the Grab app is used in eight countries across 336 cities.

While wondering how one could have a better ride-hailing experience, Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling came up with MyTeksi (now known as Grab) in 2012, which allowed the booking of a ride via an app, thereby revolutionising the service.

The app became a hit among Malaysians as they could book a taxi from anywhere in the Klang Valley. Innovative features such as live tracking and agreed-upon fares made taxi rides more convenient for many in the city who depended on them.

The service became so popular that even taxi drivers supported it, as they no longer had to wait for customers at taxi stands for hours on end or drive aimlessly looking for passengers. Grab became the first digital company out of Malaysia to truly revolutionise the way people live.

The app has evolved over time and today, provides not just ride-hailing but also food delivery and e-wallet services.

As Singapore has a better start-up ecosystem, Grab moved its headquarters to the city state in 2014.

Since then, the funding it has raised from venture capital funds has been making headlines. Starting with US$5.3 million from Vertex Ventures in April 2014, the company continues to attract venture capital firms to fund its operations.

In December 2014, Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group invested US$250 million in Grab’s Series D funding round.

Then, in September 2016, the company became one of a handful of start-ups in Southeast Asia to be valued at more than US$1 billion. In other words, it became a unicorn.

Last year, Grab became the first Southeast Asian decacorn — a relatively new company with a valuation of more than US$10 billion. Based on news reports, the company was valued at about US$14 billion in March this year, up from US$11 billion last year.

Over the years, Grab has had its share of competitors. Between 2013 and 2018, California-based Uber Technologies Inc was its main competitor in many cities and countries in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, Grab has a strong challenger in Gojek, a homegrown ride-hailing service founded by Nadiem Makarim.

Interestingly, Grab acquired Uber’s Southeast Asian operations in March last year, with the latter taking up a 27.5% stake in the former. The merger has turned Grab into the undisputed top ride-hailing service provider in Southeast Asia outside of Indonesia.

Grab now aims to become the superapp of Southeast Asia — an app that offers multiple services to its users.

In a recent interview, CEO Anthony said Grab could go public when its entire business is profitable. He added that more of its markets could move out of the red in the next 12 months.

On the company’s overall profitability, Anthony told CNBC that Grab’s operations in some markets are already making money this year.

The past decade has certainly been a productive one for Grab in terms of the building of its market share. It will be interesting to see if the next decade will be a profitable one for the group.

Anthony Tan

Co-founder and CEO of Grab

“With great power comes great responsibilities,” Anthony told The Edge in an exclusive interview in 2017.

“I have been given a very blessed and comfortable life, but I have also learnt that it has given me a greater responsibility to do good. Not everyone can have the luxury and blessing to pursue their passion and mission. To whom much is given, much is expected. The question is, how do I leverage this privileged position to leave a greater and more positive impact? I believe the worst thing in our short life on Earth is to waste our talents just because we are blessed with more [than others],” he shared candidly.

Born into a family that has built one of Southeast Asia’s largest automotive companies, Tan Chong Group, he could have joined the family business — which he did for a while after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2012.

However, while studying at the prestigious university, Anthony had already been developing an app that he hoped would revolutionise the way people travel and even make some of them, especially youngsters, rethink the need to own their own vehicle.

After working for a few months in Tan Chong Group as head of marketing, Anthony, then 30, decided to quit and focus on his business venture. With a start-up capital of just US$25,000 from his alma mater and his own savings, he launched MyTeksi (now known as Grab) in June 2012.

However, it was not an immediate success as many taxi fleet operators felt that their drivers would not know how to use the app.

Anthony and his team were not discouraged. Instead, they went to airports, bus stations, shopping malls and other areas where there were large groups of taxi drivers and explained to them how to use the app. Soon, more and more taxi drivers began to use the service and became MyTeksi drivers.

Thanks to the determination and dedication of Anthony and his team, the Grab app is now widely used and the company has grown in leaps and bounds in just seven years.

Tan Hooi Ling

Co-founder and chief operating officer of Grab

If Anthony Tan is the face of Grab, his partner Hooi Ling is the heart of the company.

The co-founder and chief operating officer prefers to keep a low profile and works behind the scenes. She oversees critical pillars of Grab’s operations, focusing on the development of new products and technology, people operations, customer experience and business operations.

Born in Kuala Lumpur and raised in a middle-class family, Hooi Ling is the younger of two children. Her father worked as a civil engineer while her mother was a remisier.

Hooi Ling studied mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the UK. Upon graduating in 2006, she returned to Malaysia and began working for McKinsey & Co. Her performance at the consultancy firm earned her a sponsorship to do an MBA at Harvard Business School.

At Harvard, she met Anthony and they went from being course mates to becoming business partners. Together, they developed an app that would later become Grab.

The idea for the app came about because, like most women, Hooi Ling did not like taking a taxi alone late at night.

“I used to call myself a reluctant user of taxis. I was actually scared of taking a taxi at, say, 1am to 3am. You get into these dingy little cars, and these drivers are not the most well-mannered ones, driving extremely unsafely. And, as a female, with the news constantly reporting about people being robbed, raped, kidnapped and stuff like that, it wasn’t fun,” she shared in a media interview.

That predicament got her thinking about how to resolve the problem and after many discussions with Anthony — during their days in Harvard — they came up with a business idea to make taking taxis safer in Kuala Lumpur.

They took the idea to a business plan contest held by Harvard and were named runners-up.

Despite being based in San Francisco, California, while working for Salesforce after graduating from Harvard, Hooi Ling travelled regularly to Kuala Lumpur to help build up Grab with Anthony. She continues to be dedicated to the company today.

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