Didi Chuxing CEO Cheng Wei image: World Economic Forum / Faruk Pinjo

You likely know Didi Chuxing. If you don’t, you will now know. It’s the heavily funded Chinese Uber counterpart, being a leader in the country’s ride-hailing market. If you’re an avid — or recent — reader of The Techie, the name Didi likely ticks a memory. That may be because Toyota was recently reported to be considering investing $550 million in the company.

Beijing-based Didi Chuxing Technology Co as its full name goes was formerly known as Didi Kuaidi. Didi Kuaidi came about from a $6 billion merger between two Chinese ride-hailing competitors, Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. It later changed its name to Didi Chuxing in 2015, the “Chuxing” in the name being a Chinese interpretation of the English word ‘commute’.

Didi Chuxing CEO Cheng Wei (left) and president Jean Liu image: Didi Chuxing

Didi Chuxing earned high reputation when it announced it would acquire Uber’s Chinese operations in 2016, seemingly beating the now public American counterpart at its own game in China. The deal got Uber a then 17.7% and now 15.4% stake in Didi Chuxing. Prior to the deal with Didi, Uber was said to be losing up to $1 billion a year on Chinese operations.

The deal marked a win for Didi Chuxing which now commands the lion share of China’s ride-hailing market, with a current 550 million users and more than 31 million drivers. In addition to China, Didi also operates in Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and Japan (via a joint venture). Just like its competitors, its business doesn’t just stop at ride-hailing. Didi is also into bike sharing, bus booking, food delivery, development of driverless vehicles, and more.

Employees at a Didi research facility in Mountain View, California image: Didi Chuxing

The company is led by CEO Cheng Wei, who previously worked at Alibaba and Alipay, and president Jean Liu, a former Goldman Sachs managing director and daughter of Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi.

Several key stats about Didi Chuxing are listed below:

• More than $20 billion total funding according to Crunchbase data.
• Reportedly lost $1.6 billion in 2018. Its counterpart Uber lost $1 billion in the first quarter of this year.
• Valued at $56 billion (CB Insights data).
• Apple invested $1 billion in the company in 2016.
• Softbank is a big investor in Didi, committed to putting $5 billion into the company.
• Has research labs in Mountain View, California and Toronto, Canada.
• Has partnerships with other top ride-hailing companies like Grab, Lyft, Taxify, Careem (acquired by Uber), Brazil’s 99 and India’s Ola Cabs.
• Didi invested $100 million in Lyft in 2015.
• Reportedly laying off 15% of its staff this year.
• Has about 170,000 corporate clients.
• Co-led a $2 billion round along with Softbank for Singapore-based competitor Grab in 2017.

There’s also another interesting company to take a look at, this time in quantum computing. Have a look at Rigetti Computing.