NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing raises $7b including $1b from Apple
Chinese ridesharing service and Uber, Inc. rival Didi Chuxing Technology Co. (formerly Didi Kuaidi) has raised $7 billion in new capital that included $4.5 billion in traditional fundraising and a debt facility of $2.5 billion.
The $4.5 billion includes a previously disclosed $1 billion investment by Apple, Inc., and $600 million from China Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
According to The Wall Street Journal the round was raised on a valuation of $25 billion, and will mean the company will have more than $10 billion in capital on hand to continue its battle against Uber.
Uber itself most recently raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund at the beginning of June.
Founded in 2012, Didi dominates the Chinese market with an 87 percent share of the market for private car-hailing in China and operates in 400 cities working with more than a staggering 14 million drivers delivering 11 million rides a day.
Uber battle
The new valuation places Didi still well below Uber’s $62.5 billion valuation but does put it among one of the largest startups on the planet, one that is catering to the world’s largest future market for ride-sharing and taxi hailing services.
Uber is well aware of the potential in China, and has previously said they intended to spend $1 billion in expanding to 100 cities in China by using profits made in its top 30 global cities, but the Middle Kingdom is a country of 1.357 billion people with thousands of cities of various sizes; Didi already has the jump in terms of being accepted in more place than Uber within China, and through a partnership announced in December 2015 with Uber rivals Lyft, Inc., South East Asia’s GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd., and India’s Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) it also has a growing global reach as well.
The other advantage Didi has is that it’s a homegrown solution backed by local companies; this is not to say Chinese people are xenophobic and against western brands, but it does allow Didi to tap into local nationalism in a head-to-head fight against the American-founded Uber.
Including the new round Didi has raised at least $10.5 billion to date; previous investors include Tencent Industry Win-Win Fund, Softbank, Tamasek Holdings and GSR Ventures.
Image credit: kouchi/Flickr/CC by 2.0
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