Uber on Wednesday confirmed that it had completed a very, very lucrative game of tic-tac-toe by adding $1 billion to its stockpile for the third month in a row. That’s right—Uber brought in $1.2 billion from investors in December, $1.6 billion in convertible debt from Goldman Sachs in January, and as of today $1 billion from expanding its Series E funding round. From the New York Times:
Uber’s $40 billion valuation, eye-popping by any private technology company’s standards, remains unchanged since the company first announced its round in December. It is one of the most richly valued private technology start-ups, second only to Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer.
Uber presumably plans to put this money toward its aggressive international expansion and development. The company, while rich, is thinly spread across 54 countries and hundreds of cities. Uber is simultaneously mired in regulatory battles, leading a global campaign for ride-hailing, expanding into the delivery business, fighting taxi incumbents, and fending off other on-demand ride startups. It sounds exhausting. More importantly, it sounds expensive.
