Uber's South-east Asian rival Grab opens R&D centre in Bangalore

Singapore-based cab-aggregator Grab is establishing a research and development centre in Bangalore that will focus on developing new technologies for its digital payments platform.

However, despite the new office plans, Grab said it won't launch consumer-facing operations in India. The Bangalore centre is Grab’s sixth engineering outpost after Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Seattle in the US, Beijing in China, Jakarta in Indonesia and Singapore, its home turf.

“Bangalore has established itself as the Silicon Valley of India and one of the global hubs in mobile technology. We are excited to extend our relentless search for global tech talent to this dynamic market. Grab has an agile and entrepreneurial work culture, and our engineers are working on new products at the forefront of global transportation and payments. We welcome talented engineers looking to be a part of a customer-focused company and apply top-tier skills to complex, real-world issues," said Arul Kumaravel, Vice President of Engineering at Grab.

The South-east Asian company will hire 200 engineers to work on improving GrabPay as it seeks to deepen financial inclusion and increase access to mobile payments across Southeast Asia. The company has already hired former FreeCharge executive Raghuram Trikutam as head of engineering for mobile payments and Ruchika Sharma, also from FreeCharge, as head of human resources.

The opening of the Bangalore centre is part of a broader regional investment for Grab, which is expanding its global research and development capabilities. In order to keep pace with Grab’s rapid growth, the ride-hailing company also announced that it will be adding more than 800 new R&D jobs in the next two years across Grab’s all six R&D centres.