Grab launched Grab Tech Center in Jakarta, Indonesia which will serve as its regional innovation hub, the company announced on Tuesday.
The facility is dedicated to building solutions for Southeast Asia’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“Grab Tech Center aims to increase capabilities and accommodate the best tech talents in Indonesia. We’ll also work with Grab’s other research and development (R&D) centers to develop, design and test tech solutions for MSMEs before being applied for small businesses throughout Southeast Asia,” said Grab Indonesia president Ridzki Kramadibrata in a virtual press conference.
Located at Gama Tower in South Jakarta, the tech center covers 12,000 square meters, spanning over 9 floors. It houses teams from business segments including GrabKios, Merchant, and GrabFood research and development (R&D), with a full suite of functions necessary to conduct end-to-end product development including product management, product design, product analytics, software engineering and quality assurance engineering. Grab plans to further strengthen staffing in the areas of backend engineering, mobile front-end engineering as well as site reliability engineering.
“The pandemic has created an unequal crisis. The most vulnerable, like informal workers and small businesses are the hardest hit. This is why we continue to deepen our roots and ties in Indonesia, because we want to play our part to enable digital and financial inclusion, and open up possibilities for everyone to move into the middle class,” said Grab co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan in a written statement.
This new innovation is the latest example of Grab’s commitment to supporting MSMEs. Tan said that the firm has set up over 35 partnerships with Indonesia’s central and local governments this year to help local businesses take part in the digital economy. Over the last few months, Grab welcomed more than 450,000 MSMEs and more than 35,000 traditional traders to the platform, according to Tan.
The new tech center is Grab’s largest facility in Indonesia. While Grab’s platform operates in over 500 cities and empowers more than 6 million MSMEs in the country, Kramadibrata said the firm plans to add five million more MSMEs by 2025.