Vietnamese ride-hailing app Be Group raises funds from Vingroup’s EV unit

Vietnam-based ride-hailing startup Be Group has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Green and Smart Mobility (GSM), a division of the country’s largest conglomerate Vingroup, which owns the EV maker VinFast.

The cash injection will be used by Be Group to transition its fleet to electric vehicles (EVs), according to a company statement on Tuesday.

GSM, which was established earlier this month, offers VinFast electric car and motorbike rental and taxi services in Vietnam. The company, in which Vingroup’s billionaire chairman Pham Nhat Vuong holds a 95% stake, will operate electric taxis as well as lease electric cars and motorbikes from April 2023. It plans to have a fleet of 10,000 cars and 10,000 motorbikes.

GSM and Be Group will collaborate to share a ride-hailing platform.

GSM will also partner with the local lender VPBank, a strategic business partner of Be Group, to provide policy offers for Be Group drivers to buy or rent VinFast’s electric cars and bikes through the GSM platform. The platform’s users will have the option to ride GSM’s vehicles in addition to Be Group’s beCar and beTaxi.

“With Be Group’s hundreds of thousands of drivers and 10 million users, and VinFast’s technology in EVs, the partnership with GSM is uniquely positioned to contribute to the government’s net zero goal by 2050,” said Vu Hoang Yen, CEO of Be Group.

In September 2022, DealStreetAsia reported that Be received a $60-million loan facility from Deutsche Bank, with provisions to upsize it to $100 million, to expand and enhance its primary services.

Separately, we reported that the Be Group is in talks with several funds looking to raise over $100 million in equity funding.

Founded in 2018, the year Uber ceased operations in Vietnam, Be has expanded its service from ride-hailing to transportation, delivery, flight booking, insurance, telecom and digital banking which are available across 28 cities in the country. The Grab rival reached profitability on a contribution margin basis in Q3 2022 and became the largest tech player in terms of on-demand transportation service providers, it previously claimed.

Be’s competitors, such as FastGo, Vato, and MyGo, are benefitting from the country’s potential to become one of the fastest-growing ride-hailing markets in Southeast Asia with the rapid increase of city dwellers and traffic congestion issues that are prevalent in several cities in Vietnam.

In December 2022, VinFast filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq.