Chinese taxi app Didi Dache revealed today that it has secured US$700 million in fresh, series D funding. This dwarfs the US$100 million it netted at the start of the year.
The new investment was led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, along with DST Global. Chinese web giant Tencent also contributed, as it did with the series C round. With this, Didi becomes the second highest funded taxi app in the world, netting more than Lyft, GrabTaxi and Ola.
Didi Dache and arch-rival Kuaidi Dache dominate the Chinese market for app-connected taxi bookings, collectively racking up nearly 100 percent market share in mainland China. Kuaidi Dache, which is backed by Alibaba, has a slight edge in the battle, according to data from Analysis international. The research firm says that 154 million people in China used taxi apps recently.
Pricier options like Uber remain a niche option. Didi Dache’s funding round is quite close to the US$1.2 billion that Uber attracted earlier this week.
Didi Dache, founded in June 2012, has more than 100 million registered users, one million registered licensed taxi drivers, and 5.2 million peak daily orders. It covers over 300 cities in China.
The taxi app started the year with a huge boost from Tencent as the social media titan added support for the taxi app into its wildly popular WeChat messaging app. WeChat users booked a total of 21 million cabs in that way in the first month of the tie-up.
See: 10 taxi apps you can use across Asia
This post China’s Didi Dache raises $700M, becomes 2nd most well-funded taxi app in the world appeared first on Tech in Asia.
China’s Didi Dache raises $700M, becomes 2nd most well-funded taxi app in the world
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