China’s Game-Changing Taxi-Hailing App

This Article Originally Appeared On Mashable

The taxi startup battle in China is heating up.

Didi Dache, a Chinese ride-hailing startup whose name translates to something like “honk honk taxi,” announced Tuesday that it has raised more than $700 million in funding to further cement its position in the country’s market.

“Didi will continue its commitment in providing mobile-based transportation services to more users, strengthening our market leadership, increasing efforts in research and development and enriching our product offerings,” Cheng Wei, Didi’s CEO, said in a statement.

The funding was led by investment company Temasek with participation from Tencent, and brings Didi’s total funding raised to more than $800 million to date. Kuaidi, Didi’s main rival inside the country, is backed by the ecommerce giant Alibaba Kuaidi, Didi’s main rival inside the country, is backed by the ecommerce giant Alibaba, which is competes with Tencent in multiple markets.

Didi may also face increasing competition from companies abroad, including the incredibly well-funded Uber.

Uber announced earlier this month that it had raised another $1.2 billion to invest in new markets, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. In one interview earlier this year, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick expressed excitement for figuring out the China market.

“We get to be the little guy,” Kalanick said then. “For me that’s like homecoming.”

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