Booking.com owner invests $500m in China’s Didi
Booking Holdings, which operates a number of online travel businesses including Booking.com, has invested $500 million in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-hailing company with substantial PE and VC backing.
The deal is being touted as part of a partnership that will combine the services of the world’s largest online travel platform and the largest mobility platform. Under the agreement, Didi will facilitate on-demand car services for Booking Holdings’ customers, while Didi customers will have improved access to Booking-branded services.
"Didi has clear advantages in technology and scale in the shared mobility industry,” Todd Henrich, senior vice president and head of corporate development at Booking Holdings, said in statement. “We believe that together we can offer smarter transportation services to our brands' customers and help Didi's customers with seamless access to the products and services the brands in our company provide throughout the world."
It follows a $4 billion funding round for Didi from investors including SoftBank Group and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala that was said to value the company at about $56 million. This followed closely on a $5.5 billion round at a valuation of $50 million that included a $5 billion contribution from SoftBank.
Didi offers a range of app-based transportation services for some 550 million users in areas including taxi and private car-hailing, ride sharing, bus-booking, enterprise services and food delivery. The user base is said to include 21 million drivers taking 30 million rides a day. Through partnerships with counterparts such as Grab, Lyft, Ola, and Uber, the company claims to service 80% of the world’s population in more than 1,000 cities.
US-based Booking Holdings was founded as The Priceline Group in 1997 and claims to operate in 43 languages globally via several recognized brands. In addition to Bookings.com and Priceline, the company manages accommodations site Agoda, restaurant reservation service OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com.
More on Greater China
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.