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World’s Largest Investment Company Funnels Money Into Uber’s Chinese Rival

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Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
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BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, has become the latest investor in Didi Chuxing, Uber’s international ride-hailing service counterpart.

Didi recently raised more than $7 billion, and BlackRock, which has more than $4.5 trillion in assets, offices in over 30 countries and is the world’s premier global investment corporation, was a major contributor to this fundraising influx according to TechCrunch.

Their investment in the Chinese company comes only two years after it financed Uber. Apple provided Didi with $1 billion just last month, showing a growing trend for the world’s biggest companies to financially back Uber’s main rival.

Like BlackRock, New York’s Tiger Global and China’s Hillhouse Capital have also invested in both Didi and Uber, perhaps to hedge their investment position on future markets.

Uber has been investing in China as well, and so far it appears to have paid off. “Last year, we were only operating in eight cities and we were [at] about one percent market share. A year later, we are about one-third of the market share and operating in over sixty cities across China,” Zhen, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Uber China, explained. According to Liu, out of Uber’s ten best cities for business, six of them are in China.

The two companies are in a glaring financial race to become the go-to ride-sharing service in China’s lucrative, and relatively vacant, market.

By also backing Didi, BlackRock seems to be indirectly signaling to other investors that it’s guaranteed that at least one of the two will be successful in China. With a population of over 1.37 billion, China may have room for both of them to succeed.

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Eric Lieberman