After years of speculation, Didi Chuxing, China’s ridesharing behemoth, finally unveiled its IPO filing in the U.S., giving a glimpse into its money-losing history.

Didi didn’t disclose the size of its raise. Reuters reported the company could raise around $10 billion at a valuation of close to $100 billion, though The Wall Street Journal cited a valuation upward of $70 billion. Uber’s market cap currently exceeds $90 billion.

Cheng Wei, Didi’s 38-year-old founder, owns 7% of the company’s shares and controls 15.4% of its voting power before the IPO, according to the prospectus. Major shareholders to reap returns are SoftBank Vision Fund, which owns 21.5% of the company, Uber with 12.8% and Tencent at 6.8%.

The nine-year-old company, which famously acquired Uber’s China operations in 2016, is more than a ride-hailing platform now. It has a growing line of businesses like bike-sharing, grocery, intra-city freight, financial services for drivers, electric vehicles and Level 4 robotaxis, which it defines as “the pinnacle of our design for future mobility” for its potential to lower costs and improve safety.

Didi set up an autonomous driving subsidiary that banked $500 million from SoftBank’s second Vision Fund in May last year. The unit now operates a team of over 500 members and a fleet of over 100 autonomous vehicles. It’s also designing EVs for ride-hailing as China pushes taxis and ridesharing companies to phase out fossil fuel vehicles.

Market dominance

For the 12 months ended March, Didi served 493 million annual active users and (Read more...)