Watch out Uber! Ola just got some Chinese muscle with Didi Kuaidi's investment

New Delhi - Chinese giant Didi Kuaidi has invested an undisclosed amount into Ola, as part of the Indian taxi hailing app’s latest fundraising round. With this, Didi Kuaidi joins Ola’s existing global investors Falcon Edge, GIC, Tiger Global Management and Japan’s SoftBank. The funds will be used by Ola to expand within India, Didi Kuaidi said in a statement. There has been speculation earlier about Didi Kuaidi investing $30 million in OIa but this figure has not been confirmed by either company. Regardless of the amount invested by the Chinese company, the investment itself is significant for India’s taxi aggregators’ market. [caption id=“attachment_2436194” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption]It steps up the heat for close competitor Uber, which now counts India as its second largest market worldwide and has pledged a billion dollars in investments here. Besides, Didi Kuaidi calls itself the world’s largest mobile transportation service platform. So its vote of confidence in Ola should count. 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. It claimed that with seven million completed orders daily, it holds 99% of China’s taxi hailing market and 82% of the private car hailing market. 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 intends to fund its continued expansion across India with the new capital. The company recently announced a plan to invest $75 million in a new car leasing program, which is expected to add 10,000 additional drivers to its national network. In the statement, Didi Kuaidi said Ola has 80% share of India’s taxi hailing market, completes over 750,000 rides per day through a network of 320,000 cars across over 100 cities on its multi-lingual platform that supports 9 languages.