China's Didi Kuaidi heats up the competition against archrival Uber with a plan to add funds of about $1 billion more to its war chest.
While terms of the funding are yet to be finalized, the investment would give the company a valuation of more than $20 billion.
Both Didi Kuaidi and UberChina are seen as expanding their services aggressively in the mainland. Certain tactics such as offering subsidies to drivers and riders are just some of the ways that these companies have employed to keep ahead of the competition.
Last year, Didi Kuaidi managed to raise $3 billion which earned it a valuation of $16.5 billion.
In order to take a stronger stand against Uber, Didi Kuaidi is spending heavily on getting new drivers and making its fare prices at competitive rates.
Additionally, the company also formed an international coalition by partnering with Lyft in the United States and Ola in India.
Some of Didi Kuaidi's offered transportation service options include chauffeur services, shuttle buses, peer-to-peer rides and registered taxis. As of January, the company's services are available in more than 400 cities and towns in China. Uber, on the other hand, is operating in 22 cities toward the end of 2015.
Apart from beating Uber with the number of covered cities, Didi Kuaidi also boasts on leading in terms of the number of booked rides per day. According to TechCrunch, the company's spokesperson revealed that they are now handling daily bookings of up to 10 million with half of the number booked on private car rides, which is similar to Uber's style. UberChina gets 1 million car ride bookings per day as of last summer.
Uber is currently valued by investors at $62.5 billion and has so far raised more than $10 billion within a period of five years. This means that as far as company value is concerned, Uber is still pretty much ahead compared to its China-based archrival.
The biggest Internet companies in China also took their sides in the growing battle between the two ride-hailing service companies.
Some of Didi Kuaidi's investors include online shopping giant Alibaba and social-networking company Tencent. The company is also backed by Ping An Insurance and China Investment Corporation.
As for UberChina, it has Baidu, the mainland's biggest search provider, as one of its investors. Its lineup of backers includes China Taiping Insurance Holdings Co. and China Life Insurance Co.
