SoftBank Corp. announced it led a USD 19.5 million Series B investment round into Splyt Group Ltd. (“Splyt”), a scale-up integrator of mobility apps and travel platforms headquartered in London. SoftBank Corp. will receive a significant share in the company, and other investors in the round included American Express Ventures, the strategic investment group of American Express. In conjunction with this investment, SoftBank Corp. and Splyt also formed a business partnership, and Daichi Nozaki, SoftBank Corp. VP and Head of the Global Business Division, will join Splyt’s board of directors to further accelerate its global expansion.
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Splyt makes global travel easier by enabling the seamless integration of mobility services into travel platforms, superapps and wallets. By interconnecting apps, end users can access multiple services on a single app, which greatly increases convenience for the user and loyalty to the app provider. Splyt has an extensive track record of such interconnections, having already integrated ridehailing into major platforms including Alipay, Grab, and Booking.com. Splyt’s strengths lie in this vast amount of interconnections and its wide range of partnerships. With this investment, Splyt aims to expand its leading global network with additional mobility services, including bikesharing and scooters.
In addition to expanding its core telecommunications business, a key part of SoftBank Corp.’s “Beyond Carrier” growth strategy includes promoting its array of smartphone-based services, including those of group companies. However, since many app platforms operate independently of each other, potential synergies that could be possible through app integration have not been sufficiently realized. By collaborating with Splyt, SoftBank Corp. will be able to interconnect the different app platforms of group companies and Splyt’s partners to realize superapps that seamlessly combine multiple services into a single interface. This will make it possible to maximize synergies between different services.
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