Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has valued the company at $62.5 billion. In this latest round of funding, Uber mopped up $3.5 billion at a time when funding for tech startups are contracting.
Uber has gained further traction in the Middle East by having raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Through this move it has gained a crucial partner in the region.
In Uber’s latest round of financing, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund valued the company at a whopping $62.5 billion. As per Uber, this move has made it the most valued venture capitalist backed company in the world.
In fact, according to Travis Kalanick, Uber’s Chief Executive Officer and cofounder, this new round of financing amounted to a “vote of confidence in our business.”
As part of this deal, Yasir Al Rumayyan, the managing director of the Saudi fund, will now have a seat in Uber’s board, said the company. Other board members include Arianna Huffington, co-founder of Huffington Post and Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark Capital.
As per Uber, thanks to this latest round of financing, its total balance sheet, including cash and debt, now stands at more than $11 billion.
This funding round is in stark contrast to the contracting climate of funding startups, which in recent have faced increased scrutiny over their valuations.
This shows that even high profile companies such as Snapchat which have been adopted en mass by consumers, still need investor dollars. Incidentally, Snapchat mopped up $1.81 billion in funding last week. Other tech firms have not been so lucky as most are downsizing to weather a fund crunch.
As for Uber, it has committed to investing $250 million in North Africa and in the Middle East where its footprint has grown rapidly to include operations in 9 countries and 15 cities in the region.
Just like in India and China, in the Middle East too, Uber is fighting against local ride hailing startups, such as Careem, in the Middle East, which already operates in 20 cities across the region.
During the first quarter of 2016, Uber has already had 395,000 active riders across the region, which represents a five-fold jump from its previous year. Similarly it currently has 19,000 active drivers which again represents a four-fold jump from it 2015 workforce.
Uber has said it has operated in Saudi Arabia since early 2014, and almost 80% of its 130,000 riders in that country are women.
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