Chinese ride service Didi Chuxing raised $5.5 billion in May, adding to more than $10 billion it raised last year. Assuming it is no longer burning through $1 billion a year as it did during its fight for Chinese market share with Uber, Didi now has a staggering cash balance for a startup, perhaps as much as $13 billion.
This is very strange. Since when do startups raise and then just sit on this much cash? Especially since Didi is now a near-monopoly in China, having conquered its two largest rivals. Following Didi’s take over of the local operations of Uber and Kuaidi Dache, Beijing’s CNIT-Research recently put its market share at 94%.
So what is the rationale for raising all this money? In the press, the commonly cited motivations for Didi’s latest fund raising are international expansion and investment in self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.
Yet other explanations are worth considering. Here are four.
Explanation 1: Because they can.
If you’re a rock-star Chinese company and there is a lot of money being offered to you cheap, why not take it? At a valuation of more than $50 billion, the $5.5 billion raised in May represents only about 11% of the company. It is generally far better to raise money when you don’t need it than when you do.
Moreover, Didi is still likely only mildly profitable, if at all. A big cash pile can secure a long runway before an initial public offering or other move is needed. It also scares off competitors. Most critically, it can enable spending on research and development as well as acquisitions far beyond what can be financed by operations. Given that President Jean Liu is a Goldman Sachs veteran, you would expect a lot of deals in the company’s future.
Explanation 2: Finding new growth.
Didi may need new paths to growth. Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities have imposed regulations requiring that ride-sharing drivers hold local residency. In theory, this could eliminate 90% of Didi’s drivers as they are primarily rural migrants. That would be a body blow to the company’s core business of providing ride-sharing in China.
How strictly the rules will be implemented is not clear. Didi has responded to the new rules by pursuing city operating licenses. It is worth pointing out that Didi, and previously Uber, operated ride-sharing services in a legal grey area in China for most of their existence. Ride-sharing was explicitly made legal only in mid-2016; the recent restrictions on eligible drivers have basically thrown the industry’s status back into doubt.
Didi has been an aggressive growth company from the start. It started with taxi-hailing then moved to ride-sharing. Now it is moving into car rental and integration with public services. It is also seeking a role in artificial intelligence, auto financing and shuttle services. Didi is thus pursuing key roles in a whole range of transportation services in China. So raising cash to continue its aggressive growth makes sense, especially with some degree of doubt shadowing its core Chinese ride-sharing business.
Explanation 3: Going international.
Another natural use of the newly raised funds would be to expand abroad given that Chinese app users are already going abroad in great numbers. Didi led a $100 million fundraising round for Brazilian ride-sharing app 99 in January and earlier invested in India’s Ola, Southeast Asia’s Grab and American app Lyft as part of an alliance of the four companies to take on Uber globally. In March, Didi opened an R&D center in Silicon Valley. And in July Didi (and Softbank) announced plans to invest $2B in Grab. I would not be surprised to see another string of international investments over the next twelve months. I keep wondering how global Didi really wants to be.
Explanation 4: There is a big disruption coming.
In theory, self-driving cars (i.e., autonomous driving) could reduce costs dramatically for Didi. Some media reports suggest that driver fees, insurance and driver acquisition costs add up to two-thirds of the company’s operating expenses.
However, the cost-saving argument misses the bigger implication of self-driving cars. If the technology is successful, it could seriously damage the business model and competitive advantage of most ride-sharing services – and could be a body blow to Didi’s current business.
The reason this sector has consolidated down to just one or two dominant companies per region is because of the powerful economics of two-sided platforms. To get drivers, you need riders. To get riders, you need lots of drivers. Being bigger in a region not only creates a superior service — since more drivers means shorter wait times for pick up — it also creates an almost insurmountable barrier for new entrants.
Self-driving cars will disrupt this competitive strength. If you no longer need drivers, you no longer have a two-sided network. Didi and Uber will then be much more exposed to new entrants with good cars, clever technology and different operating systems. Self-driving cars could make driver-rider networks obsolete or marginal at best.
So Didi and Uber have a strategic imperative to transition to this new technology and search for a new source of competitive advantage. This could be by becoming the transportation ecosystem in which self-driving cars operate. It could be by becoming the operating system, the “Microsoft of moving computers.” It could be by integrating with public transportation services. Possibly though there may just not be an opportunity to be so dominant in this emerging business.
Google, Apple, Uber and lots of major Chinese companies are currently rushing into self-driving cars (article here). One company to keep an eye on in China is Baidu. It is developing an open-source autonomous driving platform involving hardware, software and cloud data services. This could enable lots more automotive and autonomous driving companies to enter the business. Code-named Apollo, Baidu’s project will provide capabilities in obstacle perception, trajectory planning, vehicle control and vehicle operating systems. Note that Baidu first successfully road tested its self-driving cars on the highways of Beijing back in December 2015.
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So self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, new regulations and international expansion are all issues for Didi going forward. To compete, it will need to go against many deep-pocketed companies. And for sure, winning in self-driving cars will likely require tons of R&D and M&A. Just for this fight alone, Didi will need a lot of cash.
Thanks for reading, jeff
(Reposted from Nikkei Asian Review, here)
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I write (and speak) about how rising Chinese consumers are disrupting global markets. (#ConsumerChina). This also includes work on:
- “China 2025″ – what a region transformed by Chinese consumers, companies and capital is going to look like. (#China2025)
- Photo by Jeff
