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Didi Chuxing’s Robotaxi Unit Lands $500 Million From SoftBank-Led Group


Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing service, said it has raised $500 million for its autonomous vehicle business from an investment group led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

The investment will help advance the development and eventual deployment of automated vehicles in Didi’s ride-hailing fleets.

The company has been working on autonomous vehicle technology since 2016 and has been operating test vehicles in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou, and in the state of California in the U.S.

The fund-raising comes against the backdrop of SoftBank’s decision to sell about $41 billion in assets to stem losses on some of its other investments.

Softbank’s $100 billion Vision Fund has posted a series of large losses, much of which reflects its bad bets on companies such as Uber
UBER
and the failed office-sharing venture WeWork.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank is close to an agreement to sell $20 billion of its stock in T-Mobile, in which it now holds about a 25% stake. One of the buyers is Deutsche Telekom.

Despite the investment in Didi Chuxing, SoftBank has said it will mostly buy back its shares with the proceeds of the asset sales.

Some of the losses reflect the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on companies, including Uber and Oyo, an Indian-based hotel chain in which SoftBank invested.

Reuters reported that Rajeev Misra, the head of the Vision Fund, received compensation of 1.6 billion yen, or $15 million, last year, despite the fact that the Fund was a major reason that SoftBank lost $13 billion last year.

SoftBank chief operating office, Marcelo Claure, received 2.1 billion yen, or $19.7 million, an increase of 17% from the previous year.

CEO Masayoshi Son received was 209 million yen, or $1.95 million, a 9% decline from a year earlier, a SoftBank filing showed.

While the pandemic has raised new questions of about the timetable for autonomous vehicle deployment, investors have continued to pump money into some companies.

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle subisidiary of Alphabet, earlier this month raised an additional $750 million after raising an initial $462 million in February from a group led by Toyota Motor Corp.



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