Chinese car-hailing app Didi makes inroads into India

China's leading ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing on Wednesday made inroads into India by becoming part of a group of investors channeling $500 million into Indian taxi aggregator Ola.

The Chinese start-up declined to specify how much it had invested to the fund that was, among others, backed by Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi, already provides taxi-hailing, chauffeur and ride-sharing services and dominates China's online taxi-hailing market.

Didi said in late September that it had an undisclosed amount of stakes in the Indian company, following a $100 million investment in Lyft, a ride-sharing service in the US and $350 million joint investment in Grabtaxi in southeast Asia.

Alongside battling Uber in China, Beijing-based Didi has chosen to invest in Uber's rivals in other countries to compete globally.

Didi is currently valued at $16.5 billion after CEO Cheng Wei announced in September that the start-up had secured its next round of funding - to the tune of $3 billion.

(PTI)