Grab Weighs Atome Deal Above $2 Billion as Fintech Expansion Test
Grab is reportedly discussing an Atome Financial acquisition that could value the BNPL provider above $2 billion, adding a payments test to its wider dealmaking push.
A potential Grab acquisition of Atome Financial could value the Singapore buy now, pay later provider at more than $2 billion, PYMNTS wrote, citing Bloomberg News and people familiar with the talks.
The discussions would put a consumer-credit asset inside one of Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing and food-delivery platforms.
Atome serves online and store-based retailers across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, travel, fitness and homeware, giving Grab a payments product that already reaches merchants in categories adjacent to its app-based commerce business.
The transaction has not been announced, and the material unknown is whether the talks produce a signed deal.
At the reported valuation, Atome would join Grab’s wider acquisition push, extending beyond a small product addition.
Grab has already used deals this year to add businesses outside its core app.
The company acquired Stash Financial in the United States for $425 million and bought Foodpanda’s Taiwan business from Delivery Hero for $600 million.
Those transactions show a company willing to spend on financial services and delivery reach while it looks for new growth sources.
Grab raised its annual earnings and sales forecasts in August, with commuter demand helping offset fuel-price pressure tied to conflict in the Middle East.
Revenue rose 22% from a year earlier to $997 million, while operating profit reached $19 million, a 186% increase.
Atome would add a different financial profile.
The BNPL provider generated an 80% revenue increase last year to $470 million and recorded its second consecutive annual profit before tax.
That combination of growth and profitability is central to the valuation question because installment-credit companies have faced closer scrutiny over funding costs, credit quality and customer repayment behavior.
For Grab, the strategic logic is direct: a BNPL provider can sit between merchants, consumers and the platform’s payments layer.
A larger credit and payments stack could support checkout options beyond rides and food delivery, while giving the company more ways to keep users inside its ecosystem.
The risk is that a bigger financial-services footprint also brings more exposure to consumer-credit cycles and regulation.
Any completed acquisition would have to prove that Atome’s merchant reach, revenue growth and pre-tax profit can translate into stronger economics for Grab without merely adding another capital-intensive lending product.
Until the companies confirm terms, the story remains a negotiation, with no completed acquisition.
The reported price and Grab’s recent dealmaking make the talks material, but the commercial test is whether Atome can deepen the super-app’s payments business without changing the risk profile investors are already measuring.
