China’s taxi war escalates as Alibaba and SoftBank contribute to $600M funding for Kuaidi Dache

China-based taxi hailing app Kuaidi Dache confirmed today that it has secured US$600 million in funding. The series D investment – by far the startup’s biggest round – comes from SoftBank, Alibaba, and Tiger Global.

Ecommerce titan Alibaba first put money into Kuaidi Dache in April 2013. Japan’s SoftBank is no stranger to China, having invested significantly in Alibaba in its early years.

China’s taxi app market is dominated by two apps – Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache. They both focus on regulated, licensed cabs, and so have avoided much of the legal issues that have beset Uber. In December last year, Didi Dache flagged down US$700 million in funding, making it the second highest funded taxi app in the world, netting more than Lyft, GrabTaxi, and Ola. Tencent has put money into Didi Dache, turning taxi apps into a new frontier in the wide-scale battle between Alibaba and Tencent. Another web giant, Baidu, also got involved recently when it invested in Uber.

Last summer Kuaidi Dache ventured into Uber’s area by launching a high-end on-demand car service called Kuaidi One.

Kuaidi Dache now covers over 1 million taxis in more than 300 cities in China, including Hong Kong.

See: Here’s everything Alibaba invested in or acquired in 2014