Chinese car-hailing app Didi makes inroads into India

BEIJING: China's leading ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing today made inroads into India by becoming part of a group of investors channeling USD 500 million into Indian taxi aggregator Ola.

The Chinese start-up declined to specify how much it had invested to the fund that was, among others, backed by Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, already provides taxi-hailing, chauffeur and ride-sharing services and dominates China's online taxi-hailing market.

Didi said in late September that it had an undisclosed amount of stakes in the Indian company, following a USD 100 million investment in Lyft, a ride-sharing service in the US and USD 350 million joint investment in Grabtaxi in southeast Asia.

Alongside battling Uber in China, Beijing-based Didi has chosen to invest in Uber's rivals in other countries to compete globally.

Didi is currently valued at USD 16.5 billion after CEO Cheng Wei announced in September that the start-up had secured its next round of funding - to the tune of USD 3 billion.