Chinese ride-share startup and Uber competitor, Didi Chuxing, reportedly in talks to launch $80 billion IPO

Chinese unicorn startup and Uber competitor, Didi Chuxing, reportedly in talks to launch $80 billion IPO, according to The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. As we reported in our list of unicorn startups, Didi Chuxing is now leading the ride-sharing race. It was last valued at more than $56 billion as of April 2017. The company could go public as early as the second half of 2018, according to the unnamed sources that told the WSJ. Since the discussions is still in preliminary stages, there is no set date for the listing.

On March 28, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that SoftBank Group Corporation had approached Didi Chuxing Technology Co. about investing $6 billion to help the ride-hailing firm expand in self-driving car technologies,” with the bulk of the money to come from SoftBank’s planned $100 billion Vision Fund. On April 28, 2017, DiDi announced it closed a new financing round of over USD 5.5 billion to support its global strategy and continued investments in AI-based technologies, making the company worth $50 billion. Back in December 2017, Didi received additional capital injection of $4 billion from Softbank, replacing Uber as the most valuable ride-sharing company in the world.

In December, Reuters also reported that Didi had raised $4 billion for a global push into foreign markets and investments into technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, in an apparent bid to challenge Uber.

Founded in 2012 by Cheng Wei, Didi Chuxing is a mobile transportation ride-sharing platform, AI and autonomous technology conglomerate, offering a full range of transportation services to more than 450 million users across over 400 cities in China. Headquartered in Beijing, it provides services including taxi hailing, private car hailing, Hitch (social ride-sharing), DiDi Chauffeur, DiDi Bus, DiDi Test Drive, DiDi Car Rental, DiDi Enterprise Solutions, DiDi Minibus, DiDi Luxe and bike-sharing to users in China via a smartphone application. DiDi has nearly 9,000 employees with 40 percent women.

DiDi is now the world’s largest and most valuable ride-sharing company, with investment and M&A portfolio in the ride and bike sharing industry across the globe. The company carries 25 million rides per day, far surpassing the combined daily rides of all the other ride-sharing companies around the world.  Now, Didi is ahead of the race against its US competitor, Uber, to conquer the global ride-hailing market, which according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs, is expected to grow to $285bn by 2030.