SoftBank leads $600m round for China taxi-booking app Kuaidi Dache

This follows a $700 million round completed in December 2014 for the company's direct competitor, Didi Dache, which received funding from Singapore's Temasek Holdings, DST Global and Tencent Holdings. Uber is also looking to expand in China, having sold a minority stake to Baidu and entered into a strategic partnership with the search giant.

Launched in 2012, the Kuadi app connects prospective passengers with vacant taxis. It combines integrated mapping and third-party payment technology to provide widely accessible booking services to over one million taxis in more than 300 cities in China, including Hong Kong. Its 200 million users can choose from a range of standard and luxury cars, and also offer tips to drivers in order to secure a ride.

The vast majority of taxi bookings made through apps go to Kuadi and Didi. According to consultancy Analysys International, Kuadi had an industry-leading 54.4% market share by cumulative user accounts as of November 2014. The company claims to fulfill one million transportation requests every day.

As a result of Kuadi's alliance with Alibaba, passengers can make payments through Alipay. Meanwhile, the Didi-Tencent connection allows users to book taxies from within instant-messaging app WeChat.

Chuanwei Lu, CEO of Kuadi, said the new funding, plus the combined expertise of SoftBank, Alibaba and Tiger Global, would enable the company to broaden its market reach. Each group has experience of scaling technology businesses.

"In two years, KuaiDi Dache has grown to become a leading player in the Chinese mobile taxi booking industry, and we are convinced it will see further remarkable growth thanks to its talented team, vision and leadership. We are excited to support KuaiDi Dache's continued expansion in China," Nikesh Arora, vice chairman of SoftBank and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media (SIMI), said in a statement.

SoftBank is a longstanding investor in Alibaba, but in recent months the SIMI division has emerged as a prolific investor in other Asian technology companies. In the taxi-booking space alone, SIMI has backed Southeast Asia-focused GrabTaxi and India-based Ola. The former deal came through a referral from existing investor Tiger Global.

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• Topics
• Technology
• Greater China
• Consumer
• Expansion
• TMT
• Consumer
• Transportation
• China
• Growth capital
• SoftBank Capital
• Alibaba Group
• Tiger Global Management