China's dominant ride-hailing company Didi Kuaidi invested $100 million in its San Francisco-based counterpart Lyft.
Now the two companies share much more than investors Ali Baba, Tencent, and Softbank Capital: all have a common enemy in Uber.
At a Wednesday event, Didi Kuaidi president Jean Liu joined Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer in New York City to announce a "strategic partnership"
that will see the two companies leveraging their technology and product development expertise and also enabling cross-platform booking. In other words, Lyft users visiting China will be able to hail a ride from Didi Kuaidi using the Lyft app. The same is true for Didi users in the U.S.
The cross-booking product, called Ride Everywhere, will launch early next year.
The partnership marks Didi Kuaidi's first big move outside of Asia and Lyft's first international expansion. While Lyft does not enjoy the same market share in the U.S. that Didi enjoys in China, the partnership equips the respective companies with a home field advantage without having to physically enter the market.
"Didi Kuaidi is the clear market leader in China and has invaluable local expertise," Zimmer said in a statement. "In today's ride-share environment, where every region presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities, partnering with the homegrown leader is the winning approach to Chinese expansion."
The partnership is also the newest development in a series of moves that point to a global taxi alliance against Uber, as BuzzFeed News first reported. In response to whether Lyft is considering additional partnerships and investments with international companies, Zimmer said, "this is what we're announcing today and we'll announce different parts of our global strategy down the road."
Several of Lyft and Didi's biggest investors attended the event including Carl Icahn who participated in the same May funding round as Didi.
