Uber valued at about $51B after latest funding round

Just shy of $51 billion, Uber’s new valuation puts it on par with Facebook in 2011, the only other venture capital-backed startup to have surpassed $50 billion to date.

Uber raised close to billion in the round, one of the people said, bringing its total funding to more than $5 billion.

The WSJ reported that investors in this latest round include Microsoft and Indian media company Bennett, Coleman, and Company.

Tony Imperati, a spokesman for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, declined to comment.

But with the growing split between Uber and Google, Microsoft might see an opportunity to swoop in and have a presence in the growing on-demand market – and all the data being generated by millions of users taking millions of rides.

Although an impressive sum, the new funding round is far from Uber’s largest. The company has faced regulatory roadblocks in the country since December, when the app was banned after a woman said she was raped by an Uber driver.

Until now, Facebook was the only startup to have a billion valuation before going public.

Microsoft is known for investing in companies it wants to do business. Meanwhile, in June, Uber acquired Microsoft’s Bing Maps street mapping technology and hired 100 of its workers.

While Uber may be the hot tech company of the moment, it has also been diligently planning its future, which could include the purchase of an entire fleet of self-driving cars. Uber on Friday announced it would invest $1 billion in India over the next nine months to improve operations and expand the number of cities it serves there. That alliance has helped Uber compete with homegrown Chinese rival Didi Kauidi Joint Co., which has the support of China’s top two Internet companies, Alibaba Holding Group Ltd. and Tencent Holding Ltd.