SoftBank leads $19.5m funding in UK’s Splyt

Bloomberg

The Japanese wireless unit of SoftBank Group Corp led a $19.5 million investment in Splyt Group Ltd, a UK-based startup that makes software to simplify ride-hailing abroad.
With the latest round, Splyt has raised a total of $35 million, including an earlier investment by Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing giant Grab. SoftBank Corp declined to disclose the exact amount of its contribution, but said the deal gives it a seat on Splyt’s board.
Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group has been the largest investor in ride-hailing companies, taking stakes in Uber Technologies Inc in the US, Didi Chuxing in China and Grab in Singapore. The Japanese conglomerate reported record losses in May because of the tumbling value of its portfolio companies, including Uber.
Splyt works behind the scenes to connect the networks of ride-hailing providers so that users can book rides with the same app even when they leave its service territory. The company’s software also lets partners like Ant Financial’s Alipay, Booking.com and Trip.com build a ride-hailing option into their offerings. Splyt’s service covers 2,000 cities in 150 countries and also includes bike-sharing, scooters and airport transfers.
“Wireless roaming is one way to think about it: you don’t have to buy a new SIM card every time you travel and can just use your own phone,” Splyt co-founder and Chief
Executive Officer Philipp Mintchin said in an interview. “Another analogy is an airline alliance.”
The biggest ride-hailing companies have waged years of costly battles in each others territories before they agreed to stay out of each others’ core markets. In 2016, Uber ceded China to Didi Chuxing in exchange for a stake in its former rival. It pulled out of Russia in a similar manner the following year and sold its Southeast Asia operations to Grab in 2018. This divvied-up world created an opportunity for intermediaries like Splyt.
SoftBank Group’s Son poured over $20 billion into Uber, Didi, Grab and India’s Ola. But ride-hailing is only one segment in the portfolio of almost 90 companies his Vision Fund amassed over the past few years. And Son has been eager to get the startups to work together.