Ride-sharing startup Lyft has announced a partnership with China's Didi Kuaidi which includes a $100m investment in the US service to help ramp up its challenge to Uber. "With this partnership, we'll be working together to enable people to use their Lyft app when they travel to China and get a ride wherever they are going. The same will be true for Didi's users who travel to the US," Lyft said. Didi invested $100m in Lyft as part of a $530m financing round earlier this year that included Japan's Rakuten, China's Alibaba and Tencent and investor Carl Icahn. "Lyft was founded with the mission of connecting people and their communities through improved transportation. We are extremely excited to partner with Didi Kuaidi as they share our commitment to redesign cities putting people at the forefront," said John Zimmer, co-founder and president of Lyft. Jean Liu, president of Didi Kuaidi, said the partnership "enables us to join forces in rapidly advancing global innovation and growth". Reports earlier this year said Lyft's valuation was $2.5bn, based on the latest funding, which is still well below that of ride-sharing giant Uber, valued at $50bn and backed by Chinese search engine giant Baidu, among others. In July, Didi Kuaidi cited data from research firm Analysys International as showing it held a dominant position in the Chinese market, with 80pc of private car services and 99pc of the taxi-hailing market. The Chinese firm provides private car, carpooling, bus, chauffeur and taxi-hailing services to more than 200m users in China. Lyft operates in 65 US cities and is only starting to grow abroad, while Uber operates in hundreds of cities in 60 countries.
San - Francisco 's Lyft is to partner China 's largest ride - hailing service , Didi Kuaidi , which puts the company in direct competition to Uber . Lyft and Didi will both provide services that let drivers connect with passengers via a dedicated smartphone app , which will allow passengers to use their usual app whilst travelling abroad , just like they would at home ; Didi is also investing $ 100 m in China . China 's expanding middle class and huge population have created a lucrative market for Uber to capitalise on , and this means the company will spend $ 1bn on its Chinese investment . However , Uber has faced a number of roadblocks from Chinese regulators , whereas , Didi , being a local company , has a good relationship with government regulators , which may give it a competitive advantage .