Didi Kuaidi, the China-based ride hailing service backed by a host of corporate investors, is raising $1bn in new funding, Reuters reported today, citing people familiar with the plans.
The funding would value Didi Kuaidi at more than $20bn, people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal. The sources have not disclosed the investors in the round, who are still in talks with the company.
Formed by the merger in early 2015 of China’s two largest ride hailing apps – Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache – Didi Kuaidi is the market leader in China, and has been largely successful in fending off competitor Uber China.
Didi Kuaidi raised $3bn in September 2015 at a $16bn valuation. The round was led by Ping An Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of insurance group Ping An, and featured e-commerce firm Alibaba, internet company Tencent, China Investment Corp, Capital International Private Equity Fund, Temasek and Coatue Management.
The round brought the company’s overall funding, both pre and post-merger, to about $4.5bn, and followed a $142m investment by messaging platform Sina Weibo in May 2015.
Alibaba and Tencent were both investors pre-merger, as were online car rental service eHi, telecoms and internet group SoftBank, Matrix Partners, New Horizon Fund, DST Global and Citic PE.
With Didi Kuaidi having cut its pricing subsidies over the past few months in a bid to reach profitability, the new funding will go to new areas such as driverless technologies and big data, a source told Reuters.