Didi invests in Ola to boost anti-Uber alliance

The Chinese startup announced an investment on Monday in Ola, India’s largest taxi app, which is part of a funding round that includes investors such as Japanese telecoms company Softbank. A spokesman for Didi declined to specify the size of the investment.

Earlier this year, Didi invested in GrabTaxi, Southeast Asia’s leading transportation app. This is in addition to its strategic investment and business partnership with US-based ride-sharing app Lyft.

Uber and its biggest rival Didi are locked in a subsidy-intensive fight for market share in China, one that is costing them each hundreds of millions of dollars.

Interestingly, Ola and Didi Kuaidi have common investors like SoftBank, DST Global and Tiger Global Management.

In August, GrabTaxi said it had also raised money from Didi, which recently conducted a $3-billion fundraising round.

Didi Kuaidi said it believes both India and China are rapidly developing countries with enormous market potential. “Didi Kuaidi looks to engage local industry champions like Ola to share technology and best practices in product development and operational expertise – all honed from deep market data-driven operations”.

Ola has plans to add another 10,000 drivers to its network, and claims 750,000 rides a day in India. Its platform supports multiple languages, including English and Hindi.

Uber said last week it was testing a new carpooling service, called UberCommute in Chengdu, China.

Established in 2012, Kuaidi Group has a peak of six million daily ride requests and focuses on city-bound travel covering almost 300 cities in China, including Hong Kong.

Didi Kuaidi said in the statement that it operates a comprehensive transportation service for over 200 million Chinese users ranging from private car-hailing, chauffeur service, Hitch (social ridesharing service), bus and taxi-hailing.