Carmaker Toyota committed $500m in US-based ride hailing platform Uber as part of the expansion of an existing collaboration agreement, reportedly at $72bn. Uber’s first partnership with Toyota, reported in 2016, also included an investment of undisclosed size by the automotive manufacturer.
Toyota’s recent investment is reportedly meant to help Uber’s research and development costs on self-driving cars. The plan for autonomous ride hailing would combine custom-made Toyota vehicles owned by third-party fleet managers with Uber’s on-demand ride platform.
Founded in 2009, Uber operates an app facilitating on-demand ride hailing and food delivery services. The company is present in 80 countries and claims to have been responsible for over 5 billion rides. In addition to its core business of ride hailing, the company has also expanded into food delivery, freight trucking services and healthcare transport.
Uber has raised a total of $13.3bn in equity and debt financing to date, $10bn of which comes from rounds with corporate participation, as illustrated on the GCV Analytics chart here. Uber’s previous corporate backers include telecoms firm SoftBank, internet conglomerate Alphabet (through GV), internet group Baidu, China-based ride hailing peer Didi Chuxing, media companies Axel Springer and Bennett Coleman & Co as well as software provider Microsoft.
