This article titled "Uber fundraising drive values app higher than General Motors" was written by Julia Kollewe and Gwyn Topham, for theguardian.com on Friday 4th December 2015 17.24 UTCUber Technologies, the company behind the rapidly growing taxi-hailing app, could be valued at more than $60bn (£40bn) after its latest fundraising round.
The San Francisco-based car-booking company hopes to raise as much as $2.1bn in new cash, Bloomberg reported. It has filed paperwork in Delaware detailing the financing plans, which would value the business at $62.5bn. This would exceed General Motors, the US carmaker behind the Chevrolet, Cadillac and Vauxhall brands whose market value is $55.6bn.
In the summer, Uber was valued at $50bn, making it the world’s most valuable private startup.
Uber, which launched its app more than five years ago, is seeking more funding as it expands into new areas, such as food and package delivery, and rolls out its taxi-hailing service across Asia, particularly in China, where it is spending $1bn. It is working on new technology, including self-driving cars.
But Uber, which is backed by investment bank Goldman Sachs and operates in 60 countries, faces a growing number of rivals, including Didi Kuaidi in China, Ola in India, GrabTaxi in Singapore and Lyft in the US. Those four companies are teaming up in a global alliance that will make their apps compatible for travellers, they announced on Thursday.
The new technology and practices employed by Uber have repeatedly put the company in trouble with transport authorities andtaxi drivers around the world, as it faces bans in France and Australia and a swath of lawsuits in the US.
The latest legal obstacle came in the Philippines on Friday where a court ordered a 20-day suspension of Uber’s activity in Manila, as it considers a petition to ban app-based car services on the capital’s streets. The Manila cab industry, like many others worldwide, claims Uber drivers are operating outside the terms of the franchises by which its 660,000 licensed taxi drivers abide – and say it has slashed their income by 50%.
The legal battles Uber is fighting include some with its own “driver-partners”, some of whom are seeking the benefits of employees. Its tax and employment issues have remained contentious, not least in London, where even the mayor, Boris Johnson, was last month moved to attack government ministers “besotted with this idea they’ve got to support Californian tech titans, even though they don’t pay a dime of tax in this country”.
Transport for London (TfL) has put forward a range of proposals to update regulation of the taxi and private hire industry after the capital’s black-cab drivers staged protests against Uber, demanding TfL ensures the US firm is subject to the same kind of regulation as them.
However, the firm was boosted by an unusual intervention from the chief executive of Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, Alex Chisholm, this week, who warned that the London proposals “would artificially restrict competition, curbing developments that stand to benefit the paying passenger”.
Uber has meanwhile expanded its British operations by launching its UberPool ride-sharing service in London on Friday. The UK operation has faced claims from London authorities that it has contributed to increased congestion, but Jo Bertram, Uber’s regional general manager, said only 3% of peak traffic in the central charging zone was down to its cars.
Despite the numerous issues Uber faces around the globe, the brand and its potential to grow beyond the taxi industry has placed it firmly among the tech giants of Silicon Valley with multibillion-dollar valuations.
It has received financial backing from Goldman Sachs, while Wall Street hedge fund and private equity investor Tiger Global Management – which also backs Uber’s main three Asian rivals – and investment firm T Rowe Price are expected to play a large part in this financing round. Microsoft is reported to have invested $100m during the last fundraising in July, helping bring the total investment raised by Uber past the $10bn mark.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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