Uber is definitely no small company. The nature of the business and the recruiting methods made navigating applicable laws and going international rather simple, leading to a near-global rollout relatively quickly. Uber’s Chinese operations have gotten particularly large, winding up valued around $7 billion. The money is a mix of profits, assets and investments from various worldwide firms, some of whom are undisclosed investors. Thanks to their unorthodox business model and insane growth rate, securing funding has never been terribly difficult. In a recent fundraising round, in fact, Uber managed to nab almost $2 billion from investors and partners in China. Uber’s main unit, operating internationally, got what was left of the money after the Chinese arm took their cut. Beyond that, the allotment of funds across Uber’s various divisions and worldwide entities wasn’t disclosed, meaning it could have provided a seasonal bailout of sorts to various markets that slump in winter, or could have simply been distributed equally among Uber’s bits and pieces.
According to the Chinese media, with details later confirmed by a spokesperson for Uber, the list of investors in China includes CITIC Securities Co Ltd, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co Ltd, China Life Insurance Co Ltd, China Taiping Insurance Holdings Co Ltd, Hainan Airlines Co Ltd’s parent company, HNA Group Co Ltd, and three others that were undisclosed until now. China Broadband Capital, China Vanke Co Ltd and China Minsheng Banking Corp have joined Uber’s official investor list in China.
Uber seems to be having a very good year, having signed tons of deals, including some with public transport authorities, and left rival Lyft in the dust. Uber has also seen their service integrated into Facebook’s Messenger app. Future plans paint an even sunnier forecast, with plans to go into the self-driving car segment and join the transportation revolution early on. Future fundraising rounds haven’t been announced quite yet. Whispers and rumors of the company going public at some point in 2016 would make sense, but there has thus far been no sort of confirmation, nor any denial on Uber’s part. Given future plans and projections, now is a great time to be involved with Uber.