Once recognized as Uber’s fiercest competitor in China, Didi Chuxing has today over-flooded its coffers and is gearing up to take its battle against the American ride-hailing giant across the globe. Putting an end to all speculations, the Chinese ride-hailing behemoth has today confirmed that it has scored a monstrous $5.5 billion (I’m at a lack of adjectives!) in a fresh round of funding.
The valuation for this fundraising round has not been disclosed in the statement provided by Didi Chuxing. But, it is being termed as the largest investment ever bagged by a technology company. While Uber and Didi both had been scoring several hundred of billions to expand and battle out for a larger chunk of the Chinese market, neither raised this big a funding round ever, says Bloomberg. This fundraising is entirely made up of equity, no debt funding is involved in this process.
As for the investors who’ve participated in this fundraising round, Didi has not confirmed any details about the same. But, sources have already dropped the hammer on this info earlier this week and that stands true until corrected. This means existing investors, including Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank, and SoftBank came together for this round. Only one new investor i.e U.S-based Silver Lake Kraftwerk has poured capital into China’s Uber — Didi. Apple is also rumored to have invested another $1 Bn into the company.
The sources who’re very close to the development have spilled the beans on the valuation of the company as well. This now stands at more than $50 billion, helping it inch closer to its arch-nemesis Uber. The U.S-based cab aggregator, who is currently plagued with a huge number of deep-rooted controversies, has a valuation of over $68 billion. This is a significant time for the Chinese ride-hailing giant to add fresh capital to its coffers and eye global expansion. This round brings Didi’s total capital funding to around $13 billion, which is higher than Uber’s $9 billion.
This staggering valuation of greater than $50 billion helps Didi attain the title of Asia’s most valued startup. It has now made its way past Chinese phone maker Xiaomi Corp. (approx $45 billion) and widely popular e-commerce giant Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Financial (approx $50 billion), who occupy the second and third spot respectively.
Now, we speculated in our previous report that Didi was raising more capital to support its international expansion and self-driving efforts. And from what the company’s statement reads, our suspicions have proven to be true. According to the statement dispensed by Didi, the funds will be utilized as part of its efforts to build an efficient and sustainable global mobility ecosystem. This means the investment will come in handy for the aforementioned efforts.
With this new investment, DiDi will continue to work with communities and partners around the world to provide more innovative mobility services, and to expand smart urban transportation programs as part of its efforts to build an efficient and sustainable global mobility ecosystem.
There is nothing to be surprised about Didi’s plans to extend its reach beyond China and step foot into foreign lands – to take the fight back to its previous competitor. Didi has already gulped Uber’s Chinese operations and merged them into its own earlier last year. The acquisition deal eliminated the only roadblock to its growth and helped it grip the capital being doled out in the name of a competition to grab a larger market share. As for the expansion, several proofs of the same have popped up a couple months ago. Didi is developing an international English version of its app, meaning it is ready to bust Uber’s success bubble yet again.
Further, a chunk of the investments received today will be employed by Didi to further its efforts in the autonomous and connected mobility space. The company has been severely lagging behind in this field, while its competitors have accelerated their efforts to the point that they’re running public road trials at this instant. The ride-hailing giant has, however, expedited the pace of its development by setting up the Didi Labs, a Silicon Valley-based R&D center.
In the official statement, Didi continues to mention,
Building on its competitive AI-based analytics capabilities, DiDi is working towards systemic breakthroughs in intelligent driving technologies and smart transportation architecture. With the launch of DiDi Labs in Mountain View in California earlier this year, the company continues to attract the industry’s top minds and explore investment opportunities in core technology areas.
