滴滴新一轮融资将筹集数十亿美元

中国叫车服务龙头滴滴出行总裁柳青上周三表示，该公司目前正在融资。

金额很大。实际上，将超过美国拼车服务对手优步从沙特主权财富基金那里筹集的35亿美元。优步周三早些时候宣布，其新一轮融资总额超过了50亿美元。

在加州滨海城市派洛斯福德牧场举行的Code Conference大会上，柳青告诉台下观众：“在此之后，我们将成为资金最充足的私企之一。”和柳青一同登台的还有东南亚顶尖打车服务供应商Grab Taxi的首席执行官陈炳耀。

对于在5月获得苹果公司10亿美元投资的滴滴来说，此言可谓“高调炫富”。长期以来，一直有传言说苹果正在研制汽车。

柳青说：“我们这个行业才刚刚起步。进来的资金越多，它成长的就越快。”本轮融资之前，滴滴已经筹集到了50亿美元资金。

柳青表示，滴滴正在寻找最有战略意义、能带来最大增值的合作伙伴，她心里想的显然是苹果。柳青说：“我们的发展空间巨大。但不能一味埋头发展，而是需要许多战略性扶持。”

不过，滴滴的注意力都集中在自身的扩张上。它曾以滴滴打车和快的打车的身份两次进入《财富》杂志的独角兽公司名单。随后两家公司合二为一。如今，滴滴出行在400座城市的订单处理量已经达到1400万单，这个数字是整个美国叫车服务市场的5倍。但柳青说，在人口众多的中国，滴滴的市场渗透率只有1%。而且，这些城市中能够盈利的只有200座，原因是用户还不“了解滴滴”的市场，该公司为一些订单提供了补贴。

柳青表示：“要想赢得市场，就要赢得用户的心。这就是我们的专注点。” （财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

Jean Liu, president of Chinese on-demand transportation giant Didi Chuxing, said on last Wednesday that the company is currently raising money.

A lot of money. More money, in fact, than the $3.5 billion its American ride-hailing rival Uber raised from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in its latest (more than $5 billion) round, announced earlier today.

“After this we’ll be one of the best capitalized private companies,” she told an audience of technologists at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Liu appeared onstage with Anthony Tan, CEO of Grab, the top ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia.

It’s a remarkable admission for a company that in May raised $1 billion from Apple, the American tech giant long rumored to be working on a vehicle.

“Our industry is in a very early stage,” she said. “So the more capital that goes into it, the faster it grows.” Didi had already raised $5 billion before its current round.

With Apple clearly in mind, Liu said Didi was searching for the most strategic, value-adding partner. “There’s huge room to grow,” she said. “But you can’t just grow yourself. You need a lot of strategic help.”

Nonetheless, the company—which in a past life appeared on Fortune’s Unicorn List twice, as Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, which later merged—is focused on its expansion. Today, Didi Chuxing serves 14 million rides per day, or five times that of the entire U.S. ride-hailing market, across 400 cities. But that’s still only 1% market penetration in highly populous China, Liu said. And only 200 of those cities are profitable because Didi subsidizes some rides in markets where users do not yet “understand it.”

“If you want to win the market, it’s really to win the heart of the user,” she said. “That’s what we’re focused on.”