{"id":340550,"date":"2017-05-10T16:38:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T08:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1487733"},"modified":"2017-05-10T16:38:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T08:38:31","slug":"softbank-confirms-its-putting-5bn-into-didi-chuxing-the-uber-of-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/softbank-confirms-its-putting-5bn-into-didi-chuxing-the-uber-of-china\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank confirms it\u2019s putting $5BN into Didi Chuxing, the \u2018Uber of China\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Japanese telco giant SoftBank has confirmed the size of its investment into Didi Chuxing, aka the Uber of China, and the figure is\u00a0$5 billion (~\u00a5550,000M).<\/p>\n

The last item in SoftBank\u2019s\u00a0fiscal\u00a0year\u00a02017 earnings report<\/a>, ended March 31 2017 and released today, lists\u00a0the investment into Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc. \u2014 the\u00a0former\u00a0name for Didi \u2014 as the sole \u2018significant subsequent event\u2019 for SoftBank\u2019s\u00a0business at close of the full year.<\/p>\n

The company\u00a0writes:<\/p>\n

\n

On April 17, 2017, an overseas subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp. and Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc. (\u201cKuaizhi\u201d), the operator of a taxi allocation service in China, entered into an agreement whereby the overseas subsidiary will make a total investment of $5.0 billion (approximately \u00a5550,000 million) in Kuaizhi. Kuaizhi will not be classified as a subsidiary or an associate of the Company after the investment, continuously. The impact of this agreement on the operating results as of March 31, 2018 has not been determined at present.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As we reported last month<\/a>, Didi\u00a0confirmed the close of a $5.5BN funding round on\u00a0April 28,\u00a0slating the financing for continued global expansion and deeper investment in emerging areas like artificial intelligence to bring more advanced systems to its transportation service.<\/p>\n

In January the on-demand taxi app service reported having\u00a0some 400 million users across 400 cities<\/a>. It acquired Uber China in August<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

As well as SoftBank, Didi\u2019s\u00a0investor roster includes Apple<\/a>, which has invested $1 billion in the company. Silver Lake Kraftwerk, China Merchants Bank Co. and Bank of Communications Co. are also investors.\u00a0Didi\u00a0has not officially disclosed a valuation \u2014 but we\u2019ve previously reported sources telling us that it\u2019s\u00a0over $50BN.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear from the wording of SoftBank\u2019s earnings report over exactly what period the telco giant\u00a0will be investing $5BN into Didi. A spokesperson declined to specify whether it invested the entire amount into Didi\u2019s most recent (i.e. $5.5BN) funding round, or whether the amount is being spread over multiple investment rounds.<\/p>\n

SoftBank has been on a tech investment spree of late, as we\u2019ve noted previously<\/a>. It\u2019s also in the process of raising a $100BN VC fund, called the Vision Fund \u2014 pitched to potential backers earlier this year by charismatic CEO Masayoshi Son as a bet on the rise of superintelligent AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And \u2014 at least for now \u2014 SoftBank\u2019s bet on Didi appears to be\u00a0equivalent to five per cent of the planned size of that monster fund, other backers of which include\u00a0Apple<\/a>, Foxconn<\/a>, and Saudi investors<\/a>, although the Vision Fund has not yet\u00a0closed.<\/p>\n

A SoftBank spokesman confirmed to us that the fund is \u201cnot finalized yet\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Japanese telco giant Softbank has confirmed the size of its investment into Didi Chuxing, aka the Uber of China, and the figure is $5 billion (~\u00a5550,000M). Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-340550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}