The transportation sector kicked off 2018 with multimillion and billion-dollar deals in the first month of the year. The following is a summary of the top transport and mobility related deals publicised us in January.
China-based e-commerce firm Alibaba was reported to have bought $3bn worth of shares in China-based bicycle rental platform Ofo at a $10bn valuation. According to local reports, the stake was likely held by GSR Ventures, the venture capital firm that backed Ofo at series A, B and C stage. Founded in 2014, Ofo runs an app-based bicycle rental platform that had 200 million registered users worldwide, as of the end of 2017, to whom it offers 10 million bikes across 250 cities in 22 countries. This transaction comes to highlight the rising importance of bicycle rentals and sharing within the ride hailing space.
Telecoms and internet group SoftBank closed its $1.25bn equity investment in US-based on-demand ride provider Uber. The funding was provided at a $69bn valuation as part of a larger deal in which a consortium buying secondary shares from early investors and employees at a $48bn valuation. Selling shareholders included co-founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, who sold 29% of his stake in the company for approximately $1.4bn, according to CNBC. Uber’s app-based ride hailing currently spans 80 countries and it is the market leader or a significant competitor in most of them.
And these two were not the only notable deals in the ride hailing space through January. Indonesia-based Go-Jek added internet technology provider Google and local services platform Meituan-Dianping to the $1.2bn funding round it is currently raising, which values it at $4bn. Go-Jek had already received $100m from China-based e-commerce firm JD.com in August 2017, following an investment of between $100m and $150m from internet group Tencent three months earlier. Go-Jek’s core offering revolves around an app enabling rides to be booked on demand, but it has since expanded into other verticals including food, parcel and prescription drug delivery, among other.
