Grab Killed GrabInvest, Then Bought a U.S. Wealth App

Grab shut AutoInvest and Earn+ on 25 September 2023 after calling the wealth unit commercially unviable, then bought U.S. investing app Stash in 2026. The Singapore products never left home. The new app arrived with more than $5 billion in assets and a plan to look at Southeast Asia later.

A spokesperson said Grab would put money behind GrabPay, insurance and lending instead. Those lines did grow. The wealth button on the Singapore app did not come back.

GrabInvest Stopped Taking Deposits in September 2023

Customers got the email on Monday, 25 September 2023. AutoInvest and Earn+ would take no new cash. Automatic transfers into AutoInvest paused the same day. Grab asked users to pull their money by 13 October 2023. After that date, no further trades would run.

The company put the verdict in one line. “The decision follows an extensive review which concluded that the business would not be commercially viable.” A spokesperson added, “As we will no longer be investing to scale GrabInvest, we have concluded that the business will not be commercially viable in the long run.”

GrabInvest had served only Singapore. Grab never rolled AutoInvest or Earn+ into Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, the markets it had promised when it bought the licence. The same spokesperson said the wind-down was part of a push to “focus on products with strong ecosystem synergies, such as GrabPay, Insurance and Lending.”

Grab did not say how many people held the two products. It also declined to say how many would receive a goodwill credit if a forced sale showed a loss.

THE GRABINVEST CLOCK

1. 4 February 2020: Grab buys Bento Invest for an undisclosed sum and says the unit will be rebranded GrabInvest, with Singapore first and the rest of Southeast Asia later.
2. August 2020: AutoInvest goes live, letting users put as little as S$1 (US$0.70) into money-market and short-term bond funds with each eligible Grab spend.
3. May 2022: Earn+ launches as Grab Financial Group becomes GrabFin, billed as a low-risk cash product targeting 2 to 2.5% a year.
4. 25 September 2023: Deposits stop. Automatic AutoInvest transfers pause.
5. 13 October 2023: Last day to withdraw by choice.
6. 31 October 2023: AutoInvest and Earn+ accounts close for good.
7. 12 February 2026: Grab agrees to buy Stash Financial, a U.S. investing app.
8. 1 July 2026: Grab pays for a 50.1% stake at an enterprise value of $425 million and takes 100% of the equity, with the rest due at fair market value over three years.

The 2023 review sat next to a push for group profit. Second-quarter 2023 revenue was $567 million, up 77%, and losses narrowed 74% to $148 million. Management wanted adjusted EBITDA in the black in the third quarter of 2023. A thin, Singapore-only fund shelf did not make that list.

What Happened to Cash in AutoInvest and Earn+

AutoInvest was the “invest as you spend” hook. Each eligible ride or meal could skim S$1 or more into money-market and short-term fixed-income funds that advertised returns of up to 1.18% a year. There was no lock-in. Earn+ sat on idle cash and aimed higher, at 2 to 2.5% a year, when it arrived in May 2022.

Both products sat inside GrabFin, the financial arm outside the digital banks. Both needed the capital-markets licence Grab had picked up with Bento. Neither product was built as a full robo portfolio in the StashAway or Endowus sense. They were small, cash-like sleeves inside an app people already opened for food and cars.

Once the email went out, the exit path was mechanical.

THE EXIT RULES GRAB SENT USERS

• No new cash: From 25 September 2023, AutoInvest and Earn+ stopped accepting deposits.
• Self-withdraw by 13 October: Users could redeem until that date, then no further transactions were allowed.
• Forced sale after that: Holdings left in the funds were to be sold at the prevailing market price on or after 14 October 2023, with proceeds sent to the GrabPay Wallet.
• Loss top-up: If a redemption on or after 25 September 2023 produced a negative dollar return, Grab said it would credit that same dollar amount to GrabPay as goodwill.
• Accounts gone by 31 October: Users could still view details and history until 13 November 2023 and contact support about the closed books.

The goodwill line was the only sweetener. It covered a negative dollar result on the forced or early sale, not missed future yield. After 31 October 2023, there was no Grab fund account left to hold a unit in.

Lending Took the Capital Wealth Did Not Get

The 2023 message was a capital-allocation choice. Lending, payments and insurance would get the scale budget. Wealth would not. Three years of filings show where the money went.

In 2025, financial services revenue was $347 million, up 37% from $253 million in 2024, driven by lending. Segment adjusted EBITDA stayed negative at $110 million because credit-loss provisions rose as the book grew. Net loans ended 2025 at $1,180 million, up 120% from $536 million. Grab booked a first full-year net profit of $200 million, against a $158 million loss in 2024, on group revenue of $3.37 billion.

By the second quarter of 2026 the loan engine was larger still. Financial services revenue was $134 million, up 59% from $84 million a year earlier. The gross loan portfolio of $2,318 million compared with $781 million in the second quarter of 2025, a 197% rise. Strip out Superbank, which Grab began consolidating in June 2026, and the remaining book still doubled to $1.6 billion. Segment adjusted EBITDA improved by $11 million, to a $15 million loss from a $26 million loss. Loans disbursed in the quarter hit an all-time high of $1.2 billion. Deposits across GXS Bank in Singapore, GXBank in Malaysia and Superbank in Indonesia reached $2.5 billion.

FINANCIAL SERVICES, SECOND QUARTER

Superbank brought more than 7.4 million customers, with more than 60% also on Grab or OVO. Group monthly transacting users in the same quarter were 53.9 million. Group revenue was $997 million, up 22% from $819 million. On 15 September 2026 Grab said it would buy a 60% stake in Atome Financial for $1.49 billion in cash and, including that book, aimed for a gross loan portfolio above $6 billion and financial services adjusted EBITDA of $500 million by 2028.

Payments, the other named “synergy” product, made money in the home market. GPay Network (S), which runs GrabPay in Singapore, reported net profit of S$14 million for 2025, up from S$12.4 million, on revenue of S$109.3 million. The 2023 list of keepers was not a slogan. It was the budget.

Grab Paid $425 Million to Re-Enter Investing

On 12 February 2026, the same week it posted that first full-year profit, Grab signed deals to acquire Stash Financial. Stash is a U.S. registered investment adviser with more than $5 billion in assets under management and more than one million paying subscribers. Grab said it would pay for a 50.1% stake at an enterprise value of $425 million at closing, in cash and stock, and buy the rest at fair market value over three years, in cash, stock or both.

A July 6-K shows Grab completed the Stash closing payment for that 50.1% on 1 July 2026 and took 100% of the equity, with the remaining interest still due at fair market value over three years. Stash stays a standalone U.S. brand under co-founders and co-CEOs Brandon Krieg and Ed Robinson. Its results fold into Grab’s financial services segment from the third quarter of 2026. Grab said that, on current plans, Stash should produce more than $60 million of adjusted EBITDA in calendar 2028.

This is a milestone in Grab’s evolution as a trusted international provider of financial services. This acquisition brings more than just recurring, high-margin subscription revenue; we will strengthen Grab’s fintech knowhow with Stash’s AI-powered investing app, designed with existing U.S. regulatory requirements at its core. While we remain operationally focused on Southeast Asia and scaling our regional loanbook, this move reinforces our mission of democratizing financial services for everyone.

Anthony Tan, Group Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Grab, 12 February 2026

President and chief operating officer Alex Hungate later told investors that Stash “extends our capabilities into AI-powered, wealth-building products, and gives us a proposition we can adapt for Southeast Asia over time.” The IR note is plainer still: Grab will back Stash in the United States and explore bringing its investing tools, including AI Money Coach, to Southeast Asia “longer-term.” About one in two Stash users takes a positive money action the same day they use that coach, a figure Grab said was up nearly 40% in 2025.

That is a different machine from AutoInvest. Stash sells a subscription, fractional shares, managed accounts, retirement sleeves and a stock-back debit card to U.S. clients. It is already adjusted-EBITDA positive, Grab said. AutoInvest skimmed S$1 off a Singapore Grab bill into a money-market fund that paid up to 1.18%. Calling Stash a revival of GrabInvest mixes up a profitable U.S. advice app with a sidecar that never left one city.

The sharper read is less kind to the super-app story. Stash does not put a round-up toggle back on a Singapore ride. It sits in the United States as its own brand, with its own regulator, and it will only be adapted for Southeast Asia on a longer clock. For anyone who still wanted the 2020 promise, invest from the same screen as the meal, that is a wait, not a relaunch.

Singapore Robo-Advisors Kept the Clients

Grab’s 4 February 2020 press release on the acquisition of Bento Invest in 2020 sold a regional wealth vertical. Bento would become GrabInvest. Products would start in Singapore and then move across Southeast Asia. Grab Financial Group already had payments, rewards, lending and insurance. Wealth was to be the fifth line. Chandrima Das, Bento’s founder and a former Bank of Singapore managing director and ING Investment Management chief executive, became head of wealth. Her team of 12 joined. The vehicle was a MAS retail licensed fund management company licence.

Reuben Lai, then senior managing director of Grab Financial Group, said most people in the region lacked cheap wealth and retirement tools, and that GrabInvest would help them “achieve the financial stability they need well into their retirement years.” Das said the two teams wanted to “democratise investments for our consumers irrespective of their wallet size.” Philip Chew, then head of investments and new businesses, talked about a 24/7 app and “best-in-class” portfolio engines.

None of that regional roll-out happened. By 2026, guides to Singapore robo-advisors listed Endowus, Syfe and StashAway as the three names that matter. Endowus holds the CPF Ordinary Account channel. Syfe and StashAway fight over cash and SRS portfolios with no or low minimums. GrabInvest does not appear. The S$1 habit Grab built did not transfer, in any public way, onto those platforms as a branded book of clients.

Singapore already had a casualty in this category. Smartly, another local digital wealth shop, shut in March 2020, citing crowded competition, the same month Grab was introducing Bento as GrabInvest. The field that remained after 2023 is the one that always lived on advice fees, custodians and retirement sleeves, not on a ride-hailing round-up.

GXS Bank Still Wants a Simple Bond Product

The digital bank Grab owns with Singtel did not treat the GrabInvest funeral as the last word on investments. In April 2024, GXS Bank retail head Jenn Ong said the bank saw room for a simple, low-risk product that would put money into assets such as bonds. “These people will need some form of an investment product. We want to put it in their hands,” she said, talking about thinly served customers and people new to work. GXS at that point offered a savings account, a debit card and a personal loan. Sea’s MariBank already had a savings-and-investment account.

That comment landed months after AutoInvest died, and years before Stash closed. It sits in a gap the parent company still has not filled in Singapore. GXS can gather deposits. Stash can run a U.S. advice app. The Grab super-app in Singapore still has no fund button.

THE STACK THAT REPLACED GRABINVEST

• 2025 group profit: Grab’s first full-year net profit was $200 million, after a $158 million loss in 2024.
• 2025 lending book: Net loans reached $1,180 million, with financial services revenue of $347 million and a $110 million segment adjusted EBITDA loss.
• Singapore wallet: GrabPay’s local operator earned S$14 million in 2025 on S$109.3 million of revenue.
• 2026 wealth buy: Stash consolidates from the third quarter of 2026; Grab still describes a Southeast Asia investing launch as longer-term.

Grab told investors in August 2026 that it expected financial services adjusted EBITDA to turn positive in the second half of 2026, after Superbank and Stash. That target is about a loan book and a U.S. subscription app, not about putting Earn+ back on a Singapore phone. The 2023 review said a local micro-fund business would not pay if Grab would not fund its scale. The 2026 cheque says a different wealth product, already at more than $5 billion of assets, was worth a $425 million enterprise value for the first half of the equity. Singapore users who got the September 2023 email are still waiting for the version that lives in their Grab app.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Grab close GrabInvest in Singapore?

Grab said it would stop putting growth capital into the unit, and that without that spend the business would not pay in the long run. The products had never left Singapore, so there was no regional book to salvage, and Grab never published how many accounts were open when deposits froze on 25 September 2023.

What happened if I left money in AutoInvest after 13 October 2023?

Grab said it would redeem leftover units at the market price on or after 14 October 2023 and send the cash to GrabPay. If that sale, or any redemption from 25 September 2023, showed a negative dollar return on the portfolio, Grab said it would credit the same dollar amount to the wallet; accounts then closed on 31 October 2023 and history stayed visible until 13 November 2023.

What was Bento Invest, and who ran it after Grab bought it?

Bento Invest was a 12-person Singapore robo-advisory startup whose founder, Chandrima Das, had been a managing director at Bank of Singapore and chief executive of ING Investment Management. After the 4 February 2020 deal she became Grab Financial Group’s head of wealth, and GrabInvest ran on Bento’s MAS retail licensed fund management company licence.

Does Stash replace AutoInvest for Grab users in Singapore?

No. Stash remains a U.S. brand with U.S. clients, a subscription model and more than $5 billion in assets, and Grab has only said it will explore bringing Stash tools to Southeast Asia over a longer period. AutoInvest’s S$1 round-up into Singapore money-market funds ended in 2023 and has not been rebuilt inside the Grab app.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Grab’s 2023 GrabInvest shutdown and later financial-services deals. It is for information only and is not investment advice, a solicitation to buy or sell any fund, stock, wallet balance or loan, or a recommendation of any Grab, Stash, GXS, Endowus, Syfe or StashAway product. Readers who hold or are considering savings, funds, digital-bank deposits or shares should speak with a licensed financial adviser in their country before acting. Figures, product statuses and deal terms reflect company statements and filings as dated in the piece and can change with later results, regulatory notices or closing conditions.