Tesla sues ex-Autopilot head

Hi there,

Since the rise of Uber and its kin, ride-hailing or transportation network companies (TNCs) have been instrumental to Silicon Valley’s vision of a future mobility landscape. As such, it’s not surprising that startups in this field have gone on to raise some of the largest financings that VC-backed companies have ever seen.

With 2016 in the books, we took a look at how the year stacked up in equity financing to ride-hailing companies. CB Insights data shows a 19% drop in both deal and dollar terms, as the sector cooled in tandem with the global financing environment.

This drop comes despite enormous deals like Uber’s $3.5B raise from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. That being said, we still saw over $10B deployed throughout the year.

It’s well-known that the majority of this capital has gone to the largest players, but it’s still staggering to visualize just how much funding has gone to Uber and Didi Chuxing, with the two capturing the majority of dollars in the space every year since 2013.

Beyond equity alone, as 2016 wore on we saw Uber dipping into new financing instruments, turning to the leveraged loan market for the first time. Meanwhile, towards the close of the year we had an established name in Ola considering a downround amid skepticism over its valuation.

With these companies still burning cash to invest in new markets and technologies, we’ll be watching to see how much investor appetite remains in the market, and whether the largest players will continue finding alternate funding sources to avoid diluting already byzantine cap tables.

Have a great rest of the week.

Kerry
@kerrygwu