The Uber of China just raised a China-sized round of funding.
Ride-hailing startup Didi Kuaidi announced on Wednesday that it had raised $2 billion, money that will help the company expand and try to hold off competition from Uber, which has been trying to establish itself there. The company declined to comment on the financials of the round, although a recent Wall Street Journal said that some U.S. hedge funds had bought shares at a valuation of $8.75 billion.
Like Uber, Didi Kuaidi lets people use a smartphone app to call for rides from private cars or taxis. The company had previously raised $1.4 billion, which included investments from a variety of Asia tech stalwarts including Tencent and Alibaba.
[seealso slug=http://sale-online.click/2015/07/03/uber-france-protests/%5D%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3EDidi Kuaidi getes its name from the two companies that merged in February -- Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache -- in a deal reportedly worth around $6 billion. The upstarts had been the two dominant companies looking to tap into China's massive ride hailing market, which one study projects to be at about 150 million people.
The money will help attempts to hold off Uber, which also has a massive warchest of cash and designs on moving into Asia. Uber is hiring for more than 250 positions throughout Asia, and already operates in a variety of China's biggest cities. Uber also has some local fans, having taken an investment from Chinese search engine Baidu.