Grab Acquires 60% Stake in BNPL Platform Atome for $1.49 Billion
nashnova research
Grab is spending $1.49 billion to acquire 60% of Singapore BNPL platform Atome, doubling its loan-book target to over $6 billion by 2028 — its biggest bet yet that consumer lending, not rides or delivery, will reignite growth.
What exactly is Grab buying?
Grab is acquiring 60% of Atome Financial from parent Advance Intelligence Group and related sellers.
Atome is a buy-now-pay-later platform — BNPL lets shoppers split purchases into interest-free or low-interest instalments — active across fashion, beauty, travel, fitness and home retail, both online and offline.
At $1.49 billion, this is Grab's largest-ever fintech deal. This means → Grab is no longer dabbling in financial services; it is making them a strategic centrepiece.
Can Atome actually make money on its own?
2025 revenue grew 80% year-on-year to $470 million, with a pre-tax profit for the second consecutive year.
In plain terms = profitable BNPL companies are rare globally. Atome is not a cash-burning growth story — it already pays for itself.
This reflects a broader shift: Southeast Asia's instalment-lending market has moved past the pure-subsidy phase into a window of sustainable profitability.
Why is Grab making this bet now?
Grab's stock has fallen nearly 40% year to date; its market cap sits at roughly $12.3 billion. The ride-hailing and delivery growth narrative is losing traction.
Post-deal, Grab is lifting its loan-book target from "over $3 billion by end-2025" to "over $6 billion by 2028" — a doubling in three years.
This means → Grab needs to show the market it can build a growth curve beyond cars and food — and consumer lending is the vehicle it has chosen.
What else has Grab acquired this year?
Stash Financial, a US fintech, at an enterprise value of $425 million.
Foodpanda's Taiwan operations from Delivery Hero for $600 million.
Including the Atome deal, Grab's 2025 M&A spending now tops $2.5 billion. This means → with the stock under pressure, management is choosing aggressive expansion over buybacks — betting that acquisitions can rebuild confidence faster than share repurchases.
What decides whether this deal succeeds or fails?
The single test is straightforward: can the loan book reach $6 billion by 2028?
Atome's strategic value is extending Grab's consumer-lending reach beyond its own super-app — into retail categories that ride-hailing and delivery never touch.
Put simply = if Atome just becomes an in-app instalment feature inside Grab, $1.49 billion is overpaying. The deal only justifies its price tag if Atome opens a user pool that Grab's own ecosystem cannot reach.
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