Didi’s Self-Driving Unit Said to Seek Funds at $5 Billion Value

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(Bloomberg) -- Didi Global Inc. is seeking caller superior for its autonomous driving portion that could worth it astatine astir $5 billion, radical acquainted with the concern said, arsenic Chinese exertion firms thrust a question of capitalist enthusiasm.

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Didi Autonomous Driving plans to rise respective 100 cardinal dollars and is successful talks with prospective investors including a Beijing-based money to gauge interest, the radical said, asking not to beryllium identified discussing a backstage matter.

Didi’s autonomous driving portion operates a self-driving fleet of implicit 200 vehicles that person conducted trials successful Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. The Chinese ride-hailing steadfast unveiled its archetypal conception robotaxi, the Didi Neuron, successful April 2023.

Didi whitethorn usage the proceeds to proceed processing autonomous-driving technologies and velocity up wide accumulation of its robotaxi, 1 of the radical said. Deliberations are ongoing and the institution could inactive determine against pursuing a deal, the radical said.

A typical for Didi didn’t instantly respond to a petition seeking comment.

Autonomous driving and instrumentality learning person been astatine the forefront of a caller rally successful China’s equity markets, initiated by the accomplishment of startup DeepSeek’s low-cost R1 model. President Xi Jinping’s backing has besides prompted investors to re-evaluate the nation’s tech companies and their maturation prospects.

Self-driving entrepreneur James Peng has go a billionaire aft a surge successful shares of his robotaxi startup Pony AI Inc., which has a marketplace worth of $5.3 billion. Pony AI is up astir 16% since its US archetypal nationalist offering successful November.

WeRide Inc., which has a robotaxi work statement with Uber Technologies Inc. successful Abu Dhabi, saw its shares spike 135% successful mid-February aft Nvidia Corp. disclosed an concern successful the Chinese firm.

Didi Autonomous Driving raised $298 cardinal from investors led by Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. successful a Series C backing circular successful October, according to a connection connected its authoritative WeChat account. Other backers of the institution see SoftBank Vision Fund, IDG Capital, CCB International and alternate concern steadfast CPE.