Bike Sharing Startup Gets $700 Mln. In Financing

(RTTNews) - Ofo, the bike sharing app in China, managed to attract $700 million funding for its global expansion plan. The investors include Alibaba Group, Hony Capital as well as CITIC Private Equity. The existing investors Didi Chuxing and DST Global also participated in the new round of funding.

Ofo, with a valuation of around $2 billion, offers yellow bikes on demand and that too on a non-docking platform. The increased passion for sharing bikes in China have really replaced shared taxis is short routes. By the end of this year, it is expected that the cycle sharing clients in China will reach 50 million, up from 18 million in the prior year.

Ofo, run by Beijing Bikelock Technology Co., is planning to upgrade its service and to offer better experience to clients. Now it has around 5 million bicycles in China. It is slowly expanding to Britain, U.S. and Singapore. It uses an app that can scan the QR code to unlock a bicycle. Each bicycle has a GPS chip and can be parked at any permitted parking.

Earlier in February, Ofo has raised $450 million and at that time the company had a valuation of $1 billion.

Last month, Ofo's rival Mobike that offers orange bikes, has raised $600 million. Earlier, Mobike has raised $300 million from investors such as Foxconn, Temasek, Tencent. Mobike has plans to expand to Manchester in U.K after its expansion to Singapore. It claims to have 100 million registered users and 25 million rides per day. It offer 5 million bicycles with GPS trackers.