Cab-hailing firm Uber and ride-sharing giant BlaBlaCar are raising another round of funding.
Uber has raised $1.2 billion in a round led by Baidu, a Chinese web services company, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing sources. The new capital will be used increase Uber’s ride sharing business in China. This brings the valuation of Uber to $51 billion, making it the highest ever valuation for a venture backed company, according to a report by Fortune.
Uber’s competitor in China, Didi Kuaidi, is raising $3 billion, bringing its valuation to $16.5 billion, which is much less than $8 billion valuation that Uber’s China subsidiary has, according to a report by Bloomberg.
While China is Uber’s fastest growing market, India comes second. Uber is doubling its headcount in India to strengthen its position. Uber is one of the well-funded startups in the world, and its investors include Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, BlackRock Inc, Summit Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Qatar Investment Authority. Tata Capital’s flagship private equity fund Tata Opportunities Fund (TOF) has invested an undisclosed amount in Uber, as part of Uber’s $1.2 billion pre-IPO fundraising effort, led by China’s Hillhouse Capital Group.
Recently, Tata Opportunities Fund, Tata Capital’s flagship private equity fund, had invested an undisclosed amount in Uber.
Meanwhile, France-based BlaBlaCar in talks with Insight Venture Partners for raising $160 million in its latest round. This will bring BlaBlaCar’s valuation to $1.2 billion. The latest round marks the biggest VC investment in a startup in France, according to a report by VentureBeat. The company had raised $100 million last year from Index Ventures, Accel Partners, Lead Edge Capital and French fund ISAI, to expand operations beyond Europe.
BlaBlaCar had launched its operations in India in January this year.