Didi Kuaidi, China’s most popular ride-hailing app and Uber’s top global rival, is seeking to close a further $1 billion USD in funding, valuing the company at more than $20 billion USD.
The round, initially reported by the Wall Street Journal who cited unnamed sources, has not yet been finalized and no potential investors were disclosed, though they did note that the round is oversubscribed.
The latest addition to Didi’s coffers will give them more leverage in their war against Uber as well as smaller Chinese ride-hailing services. Didi Kuaidi is the dominant player in the Chinese market, and also a strong competitor in the private car hailing market. The company currently claims to be working in more than 400 cities.
The latest discussions come just four months after the company raised $3 billion USD in September. Uber’s China arm ‘UberChina’ raised $1.2 billion at a valuation of over $8 billion to fuel their expansion in the same period.
The latest potential injection highlights continued investor confidence in China’s runaway on-demand unicorns, despite a slowing economy and an increasingly wary local VC climate. Chinese competitors have struggled to compete in the increasingly consolidated space. In October two of the country’s most popular ‘chauffeur’ apps eDaijia and UCAR entered a strategic partnership to share resources.
Didi Kuaidi has also been eying international markets through strategic connections to US-based Lyft, India’s Ola Cabs and Singapore’s Grab Taxi. Lyft recently revealed that users of the Lyft app will be able to use it to hail Didi cars in China and vice versa within a matter of months.