Didi Chuxing CEO Cheng Wei image: World Economic Forum / Benedikt Von Loebell

According to a Nikkei report, Toyota is considering taking a 60 billion yen ($548.6 million) stake in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing and looking to partner with the company to set up a new mobility service. This would be some few months after Toyota invested $500 million in Uber and inked a driverless car partnership with the company, and a short time after a participation in a $1 billion round for Uber ATG, the unit responsible for its development of driverless vehicles.

Didi Chuxing has raised nearly $21 billion in total funding according to Crunchbase data. Its last known round was a $500 million investment from Booking Holdings that also came with a strategic partnership. Valued at $56 billion (CB Insights data), Didi is the second highest valued private tech company known, beaten only by China’s Bytedance (valued at $75 billion).

Didi Chuxing President Jean Liu image: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell

With a valuation that high, Didi Chuxing is a likely IPO contender. But the company has been burning lots of cash and was reported to be laying off 15% of its staff this year. This may lead to a delay for an IPO.

Nevertheless, its American counterpart, Uber — which is also burning cash — went public earlier this month and is set to report its first financial results as a public company tomorrow.

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