Uber was valued at more than $60 billion, people familiar with the matter said in December, making it the world’s most valuable startup. Photo: Reuters
Moscow: Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s investment vehicle LetterOne invested $200 million in Uber Technologies Inc., betting in ride-hailing technology after selling billions of dollars worth of oil assets.
“We aim to invest in young but proven businesses,” Alexey Reznikovich, managing partner at Fridman’s fund, said in a statement. “We don’t want to focus on any specific sector, but on technologies, because they can jump from one sector to another.”
LetterOne, owned by Fridman and his partners, holds stakes in European telecommunications carriers VimpelCom Ltd. and Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS. The investment vehicle received about $14 billion from selling the oil company TNK-BP to the Russian government in 2013.
Uber, a US ride-hailing startup seeking to expand globally, was valued at more than $60 billion, people familiar with the matter said in December, making it the world’s most valuable startup. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov invested in Uber last year, according to a report last month by Russian publication RBC, which didn’t give a value. Bloomberg
[“source-Livemint”]