Ride-sharing start-up Lyft Inc on Wednesday announced a partnership with China’s Didi Kuaidi (滴滴快的), which includes a US$100 million investment in the US service to help ramp up its challenge to Uber Technologies Inc.
“With this partnership, we’ll be working together to enable people to use their Lyft app when they travel to China and get a ride wherever they are going. The same will be true for Didi’s users who travel to the US,” Lyft said in a blog post.
The statement said Didi invested US$100 million in Lyft as part of a US$530 million financing round earlier this year that included Japan’s Rakuten Inc, China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), and US investor Carl Icahn.
“Lyft was founded with the mission of connecting people and their communities through improved transportation. We are extremely excited to partner with Didi Kuaidi as they share our commitment to redesign cities putting people at the forefront,” Lyft cofounder and president John Zimmer said.
Didi Kuaidi president Jean Liu (柳青) said the partnership “enables us to join forces in rapidly advancing global innovation and growth.”
Reports earlier this year said Lyft’s valuation was US$2.5 billion based on the latest funding, which is still well below that of ride-sharing giant Uber, valued at US$50 billion and backed by Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc (百度), among others.
Didi Kuaidi in July cited data from research firm Analysys International as showing it holding a dominant position in the Chinese market.
The Chinese firm provides private car, carpooling, bus, chauffeur and taxi hailing services to more than 200 million users in China.
Lyft operates in 65 US cities and is only starting to grow abroad.
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