Uber valuation soars to as much as $40bn
Uber, the smartphone based taxi booking service, has been valued at between $35 and $40bn in its latest round of financing – according to reports from Bloomberg.
The financial news service cites people familiar with the negotiations who say that T. Rowe Price Group and Fidelity Investments are preparing to provide $1bn in capital in return for a stake in the company although this has not yet been finalized.
Should it go through the valuation would more than double the $17bn price tag associated with the taxi app as recently as June and puts it well ahead of other US technology start-ups such as Airbnb and Dropbox.
In fact, at $35bn plus, Uber would be 1.5 times bigger than Twitter and comparable in size to established firms such as Delta Airlines and Kraft Foods.
Uber was founded in 2009 and has since grown to offer car booking services in 220 cities globally, although not without some controversy. Taxi drivers famously staged a day of protest in June at what they say is an unfair undercutting of their present pricing structure.