Tencent Holdings, the corporate venturing unit of China-based media conglomerate Tencent, has entered into the foray of mobile taxi-request services with a reported $10m to $15m investment in Beijing-based Didi Taxi, according to several Chinese news sites.
Other corporate venturing arms that have entered the Asian market recently include Alibaba Group’s investment into Kuaidi Dache, a mobile application development company. European corporate investors in the market include MyTaxi backers T-Venture, the corporate venturing unit of Deutsche Telekom, and Car2Go, a subsidiary of auto group Daimler, which specialises in fleet transport of several hundred environment-friendly Smart vehicles for rent.
The Didi Taxi mobile phone application, which allows users to book taxis by voice, entered the Shanghai market in early March and said it now has more than 12,000 drivers in Shanghai using the app, with 5,000 new orders being placed every day, according to a report by China’s Global Times.
When it was first launched in Beijing, Didi Taxi charged 3 yuan ($0.50) for each booking but, cancelled the charge within a month, according to local news reports. “We found that charging customers was not helping in promoting our app, so we’ve decided to be free for three years and focus on streamlining the app design in this period,” the spokesperson Zhuo said.
According to a Bianews source another deal in the sector was recently completed including that of Call-Taxi, under the flag of, a car-sharing internet car service platform. Parent company Yongche.com raised more than $15m in a series B investment from CBC Capital. According to the news sources, the capital raised will go towards boosting Call-Taxi’s market share.