Didi Kuaidi, Uber’s biggest rival in China, raises $2bn in fresh funding

Didi Kuaidi, the mobile ride-hailing company which is Uber’s biggest rival in China, has announced that it has raised $2bn in its latest funding round. New investors include Capital International Private Equity Fund and Ping An Ventures. The company added that existing stakeholders, including Alibaba, Tencent, Temasek Holdings and Coatue Management, also took part in the latest fundraising.

Didi Kuaidi said that the fundraising will lift its cash reserves to $3.5bn, and sources report that the company is now valued at around $15bn.

The fundraising round is still open and more investment is expected.

Didi Kuaidi was established following the merger between rival service providers Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache earlier this year.

Sources report that Didi Kuaidi is currently handling around three million rides per day in China (compared to about one million for Uber) but the company is apparently aiming to be doing ten times this amount within three years.

While Didi Kuaidi is reportedly the dominant figure in the regular taxi market, Uber is ahead on peer-to-peer (P2P) rides. However, Didi Kuaidi does appear to be moving fast in this space too: it launched its P2P service on 1 June and is reportedly already receiving 600,000 request rides a day and covering around 150 cities.

Although Didi Kuaidi appears to have had a successful fundraising round, the value of stock in many of China’s leading companies has been falling recently. Indeed, Bloomberg reported today (8 July) that China’s benchmark stock index has tumbled to a three-month low.