Southeast Asian ride-hailing and food delivery giant Grab announcedSigning the final agreementThe company will make a strategic investment in Vay Technology GmbH, a German company specializing in remote driving technology.
This investment will be implemented in two phases: Grab will initially invest $6000 million in cash, with the transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, acquiring a minority stake in Vay. Furthermore, if Vay achieves the financial and operational milestones agreed upon by both parties within the first year after the closing, Grab will, subject to regulatory approval, invest an additional $3.5 million, potentially making Grab the largest shareholder of Vay.
This move not only provides funding for Vay's expansion in the US market, but also demonstrates Grab's focus on Vay's unique "driver-vehicle separation" operating model and the massive amount of driving data collected by its fleet, thereby accelerating Grab's own long-term autonomous driving and AI model training strategy.
Vay's "driver-vehicle separation" car rental model: remote vehicle delivery, user self-drive.
Vay's business model is not Robotaxi, but rather an "on-demand car rental" service that is more cost-effective, falling between traditional car rental and ride-hailing services.
Its operation process is as follows:
• User requests a ride: Users can reserve an electric vehicle through the Vay App.
• Remote delivery: A "teledriver" in the control center will remotely drive the vehicle to the user's designated location via a camera and low-latency connection.
• User self-driving: Once the vehicle arrives, the remote driver disconnects, and the user takes over the vehicle and drives it like a regular car.
• Remote car return: Once the user arrives at their destination, they can get out of the car and leave. The vehicle will then be taken over by a remote driver and driven away, saving the user the trouble of finding a parking space.
Vay emphasizes that its system uses all cameras and is hardware-light, and a remote driver only needs to intervene once per hour when picking up/dropping the car, thus supporting more customer trips and making the service cost far lower than traditional ride-hailing services.
Vay's technology has been certified by the German vehicle safety authority and has been commercially operating in Las Vegas, USA since 2024, having already completed tens of thousands of trips.
Grab focuses on "hybrid mode" and AI training data
Grab CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan stated that the future of transportation in Southeast Asia will be a "hybrid model," relying on a combination of professional driving partners, autonomous vehicles, and remote driving services. He believes this investment will create "valuable technological and operational synergies" for Grab's long-term mobility strategy.
The deeper significance of this collaboration lies in AI data. Grab will leverage its operational expertise in over 800 cities across Southeast Asia (such as fleet management and marketing) to assist Vay's growth in the US market. In return, the vast amount of driving data collected by Vay's fleet will accelerate the training of Grab's proprietary AI models, particularly improving its autonomous driving system's real-world perception capabilities. This aligns with Grab's recent investments in self-driving companies like WeRide and May Mobility.
Vay CEO and co-founder Thomas von der Ohe stated, "Grab is one of the best operators in the world," and both companies share a common vision of "reducing private car ownership through ride-sharing services."
Investors: Vay is a huge market outside of Robotaxi
Former Google CFO and Vay investor Patrick Pichette also expressed excitement about the collaboration, saying that Vay's technology and Grab's excellent operations are a powerful combination. He emphasized that Vay's focus on the "driverless car rental" field is "a complement to Robotaxi" and has its own unique and huge market opportunities.
Vay boasts a strong existing investor lineup, including well-known venture capital firms such as Kinnevik, Coatue, Atomico, General Catalyst, and Eurazeo.
