Uber, has now made available a filing, according to which, the company had closed a new funding round worth of around $1 billion in May, surging its valuation to a staggering $50 billion.
As per the report from Wall Street Journal, the investors in this funding round includes Microsoft and Indian media company Times Internet, which runs websites for Bennett Coleman & Company. Including this funding round, the company has raised a total sum of $6.9 billion from 11 investors.
Interestingly, Uber has breached the $50 Billion mark in a span of six years, faster than Facebook, which achieved the feat in seven years.
Facebook and Uber are the only two venture backed start-ups which have been valued at over $50 billion. When Facebook reached the valuation of $50 billion, it had reported annual revenues of $2 billion while Uber has reported $400 million in revenues last year.
In a statement sent to us, an official Uber spokesperson said,
We filed to authorize this new funding more than two months ago. The filing is available to the public. We aren’t commenting on additional speculation.
The company achieved this goal due to its aggressive expansion strategy globally. It is operating in more than 300 cities globally and is also growing its user base by offering free or heavily discounted rides. It is available in around 56 countries.
However, do take note of the fact, that this is an older funding round, the filing of which has been made publicly availabe now. It isn’t a new funding roud, as has been reported by numerous publications. Many reports had covered news about this funding in early May, and Uber had filed a charter that is publicly available authorizing this new round of funding back in May.
In December last year, Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker was the most valued private start-up in technology at $46 billion. Now, Uber’s latest financing vaults its ahead of Xiaomi.
The report of Uber’s latest funding comes on the heels of its announcement of investing $1 billion in India to scale up its operations. It is facing regulatory roadblocks in India since last year, when it was banned. Despite similar legal problem in many countries, the company keeps on growing and setting new benchmarks.
