Quick on the heels of a regulatory filing this morning, Uber announced it has raised $1.2 billion in a new round of funding.
Uber Announces $1.2 Billion Raise, Confirms $40 Billion Valuation
Travis Kalanick said Uber is now in 250 cities in 50 countries, six times bigger than a year ago.
Asa Mathat
The filing had said Uber could raise up to $1.8 billion, total, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said the round was set up to contain “additional capacity remaining for strategic investments.”
A spokeswoman for Uber confirmed the round valued the company at $40 billion. She declined to confirm which investors had participated. Uber has now raised a total of $2.9 billion over five and a half years.
Notably, Kalanick indicated in a blog post the funding would be targeted toward investments “particularly in the Asia Pacific region.” That is where Uber faces some of its biggest challengers, like Kuaidi and Didi Taxi in China, backed by Alibaba and Tencent, respectively; Ola in India, backed by Softbank; and GrabTaxi in Southeast Asia, which just announced $250 million in new funding from Softbank today. While Lyft is often mentioned as Uber’s biggest competitor, it has yet to expand internationally.
Kalanick said Uber is now in 250 cities in 50 countries, six times bigger than a year ago and growing fast.
Sources told Re/code that Uber was telling investors it had a gross revenue run rate of more than $4 billion in 2014, which the company expects to more than double in 2015 to $10 billion.
Kalanick also devoted space in an official blog post to acknowledging Uber’s recent missteps, which include employees tracking users and talking of smearing journalists.
“The events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change,” Kalanick said. “Acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps. We are collaborating across the company and seeking counsel from those who have gone through similar challenges to allow us to refine and change where needed.”
The bad news around Uber contributed to a small dip in U.S. growth last week that seemed to benefit Lyft, according to customer receipt analysis — but Uber still grew 209 percent for the week, year on year.
Uber is also working on a private placement of convertible debt for Goldman Sachs clients, as has been reported.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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