San Francisco based ride-hailing service Uber has been heavily invested in, since its launch in 2009. The company has been raising shit load of money from multiple investors including Benchmark and Google Ventures, as well as large financial firms like Goldman Sachs and TPG Growth.
Since its advent, Uber has raised more than $8 billion, which is a lot, if we say so ourselves. Uber, just 3 months ago, raised an enormous amount of capital from investors and apparently, the company is at it again.
The tech firm has been reported to be planning to raise $1 billion in new venture capital from investors, according to people close to the matter. According to the report, investors are looking at a valuation of $60 billion to $70 billion.
This round will be the eighth that the company has sought over the last five years and will make Uber the world’s most valuable private start-up by far. The round this summer raised Uber’s value to more than $50 billion which is a bit more than what Facebook was valued for after its last big round of private capital fund-raising in 2011.
When asked about the matter, a Uber spokesperson declined to comment on Friday.
According to reports, the executive management at Uber has approved another round, and the company plans to get the whole talking process done in the next few weeks. Precise targets on the size and the valuations will be determined after the company begins the official conversation stage with potential investors.
Recently, most companies are opting to stay private for longer as opposed to turning public because of the way the stock market is treating initial public firms. Median wait time of companies this year to turn public has raised to 7.7 years from 5.8 years in 2011, according to data compiled by PitchBook. Uber also seems to be in the same boat.
According to Travis Kalanick, Uber’s founder and chief executive, the company management has little interest in going public in the near future.
We’re like eighth graders. We’re in junior high and someone is telling us that we need to go to the prom, and it’s just a little early,
Kalanick said at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive Conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Tuesday.
Let us get into high school before we start talking about these sorts of things.
The tactic could help the company raise its valuation by a lot. According to CB Insights, a venture capital database, there are more than 140 private companies valued at $1 billion or more, called unicorns.
Uber is one of the most valued startups in the world, but is continuously under threat, facing competition by local companies in different regions. It operates in more than 300 cities in 63 countries around the globe. According to the company, hundreds of thousands of drivers work on a contract basis for the company and millions of riders use its service each day.
The company itself has invested in many of its subdivisions like Uber Eats, a food delivery service, Uber Rush, a way for the company to deliver everyday goods on retailers’ behalf and Uber Pool, the company’s ride-sharing service, which matches multiple passengers who are traveling along the same routes to different destinations.
Uber’s competition around the globe include Didi Kuaidi, the most popular ride-hailing app in China, Ola in India, BlaBlaCar in Europe and Lyft in the US.
