Lyft, Didi, Ola And GrabTaxi Partner In Global Tech, Service Alliance To Rival Uber

[Pretiacruento]

[b]Lyft, Didi, Ola And GrabTaxi Partner In Global Tech, Service Alliance To Rival Uber[/b]
Via [url=http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/03/lyft-didi-ola-and-grabtaxi-partner-in-global-tech-service-alliance-to-rival-uber/]TechCrunch[/url]
____________________
[quote][img]http://i.imgur.com/PIauMHL.jpg[/img]

As Uber ramps up its business globally with yet more money, four of its regional rivals are getting closer to each other in a bid for more scale and service continuity. Lyft in the U.S., Didi Kuaidi in China, Ola in India and GrabTaxi in SouthEast Asia have now inked a strategic partnership to work together on technology and services. This will begin with customers of each company able to use their local apps to order transportation when they travel to the other markets in the network, starting in Q1 2016.

The companies say that each country will handle “mapping, routing and payments through a secure API.”

The four companies all say the plan is to keep their independence as regionally-focused companies and to keep growing in that way, rather than to view this news as a precursor to a merger or more growth for any individual company.

“We’re not excluding expansion to other places, but we are a startup and cautious about how we grow,” a spokesperson for Didi Kuaidi told TechCrunch in an interview. “The idea is not to merge and acquire but to find people we can work with. In China we have an urban population of 800 million but we are only currently serving 250 million, so we have a lot of room to grow, and this population will always be our priority.”

Nevertheless, a service and technology tie-up between the four companies is a natural progression of the increasing financial connections between them. All four share common VC backers, most notably SoftBank, who we have in the past described as Uber’s biggest competitor because of its prolific investments in Uber competitors.

Collectively, the group has raised $7 billion in funding. But in the race to raise more money to pour into marketing, R&D and growth, Uber has built up a warchest of $8.21 billion and is reportedly raising another $2.1 billion more.

The other connection between the four partners is that Didi has invested in Lyft ($100 million announced in September), GrabTaxi (leading a $350 million round in August) and Ola (part of $500 million round also over the summer).[/quote]
Oh boy... this ought to be interesting.

[Antlerp]

Its like when all the narcos in Columbia partnered up to form an alliance

[TG2]

im gonna still remember the taxi's u dont get through an app in the future

[Mr]

I was hoping for more of this:
[video=youtube;up3nCNlu28E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up3nCNlu28E[/video]