China Ride-Sharing Company Didi Chuxing Files For U.S. IPO

China's ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing has filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. that looks set to be one of the biggest listings this year, Reuters and TechCrunch reported Friday.

Didi - backed by SoftBank, Alibaba and Tencent - didn't disclose the size of the offering.

According to Reuters, Didi could secure around $10 billion at a valuation of nearly $100 billion.

The Wall Street Journal suggested a valuation of more than $70 billion. In comparison, Uber's market valuation currently tops $90 billion.

The Beijing-based company said it will list on either the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq.

Didi filed under its legal name Xiaoju Kuaizhi late Thursday.

Thirty-eight year-old Cheng Wei, Didi's founder, owns 7% of the company's shares and controls almost 15% of its voting power, according to a prospectus. 

Didi has growing businesses like bike-sharing, grocery, freight, electric vehicles and Level 4 robotaxis, which the company defines as "the pinnacle of our design for future mobility."

Founded in Beijing in 2012, Didi started out as a taxi-hailing service before expanding into other types of transport.

In 2015, the company combined with competitor Kuaidi Dache to form what became Didi Chuxing.

In 2017, Didi had a market cap of $56 billion and its investors include Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi state fund and SoftBank of Japan.

Didi is currently worth $62 billion, making it the fourth most valuable unicorn in the world, data by CB Insights shows.

Didi said that an initial public offering would bankroll an expansion.

"We aspire to become a truly global technology company," Didi's founders, Cheng and Jean Liu, wrote in a letter included with the filing, according to The New York Times.