$4 Billion More For Ridesharing, Because Why Not

Morning Report: Didi raises another chunk of cash. Is $4 billion a lot?

Didi, the Chinese ridesharing giant, has raised $4 billion to work on “AI, international expansion and electric vehicles.”

The $4 billion round comes just months after Didi raised $5.5 billion in April of this year. That round, which counted the ever-present Softbank as a participant, remains Didi’s largest to date.

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Indeed, its new $4 billion marks the fifth time that Didi has raised over $1 billion in a single go. The new capital pushes its known capital raises to just under $20 billion. Didi’s ability to raise is putting Uber’s own to shame.

But Uber shouldn’t be so sad. After all, it owns a piece of Didi that it picked up when it gave up competing in China.

Did’s new round comes with a new valuation, as you expected. Here’s TechCrunch on the raise:

We understand that the investment gives Didi a valuation of $56 billion, a jump on the $50 billion valuation in April when it closed $5.5 billion in fresh investment.

The same article goes on to note that Didi’s valuation may be higher than the price at which Uber shareholders can sell their equity to Softbank. (Softbank is buying billions in shares from extant shareholders, and then topping-up Uber’s valuation with a billion-dollar injection.)

So if you count the secondary liquidity’s price point as the correct metric, Didi may have taken Uber’s value crown. That doesn’t really matter, of course. But as far as horse races go, it’s a big one.

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Sequoia raising $5B or more

• Storied venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is in the early stages of raising about $5 billion, and potentially more, for its third global growth fund, according to media reports. The fundraising goal marks a major increase from the firm’s last growth fund, which was about $2 billion in size.

Summing up SoftBank’s Big Year

• Speaking of huge funds, what’s up with SoftBank? The firm put tens of billions into venture-backed companies this year, an unprecedented sum for a single investor. In an effort to pinpoint the spaces that saw the greatest impact from the its largess, Crunchbase drilled into the global activities of its $100 billion [Vision Fund])(https://www.crunchbase.com/fund/softbank-raised-softbank-vision-fund—abf5a098) across early through growth stage.

Didi pockets another $4B

• Chinese ride-hailing market leader Didi Chuxing announced that it has raised over $4 billion in fresh capital from institutional investors in China and abroad to support international expansion, AI-focused R&D, and other internal efforts. Investors were not named.

Daimler takes stake in French Uber rival

• Germany’s Daimler has acquired a majority stake in Chauffer Privé, a five-year-old French ride-hailing startup that previously raised about $6 million in venture funding.