China’s Largest Auto Insurer Invests $350M in Uber-Like Ucar

People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC) has invested $350M in ride-hailing service Ucar , an Uber-like company and a prominent rival of Didi. This brings the company’s total investment to date to $2.4B. BTW, Alibaba is also a backer. For PICC this is a strategic investment as it plans to cooperate with Ucar on areas such as car insurance and car financing services. Recall: Ucar is a mobile-first car service provider established in 2015. Its key point of difference is that its services are offered via an in-house fleet and licensed drivers as opposed to crowd-sourced drivers. Note the URL:

Speaking of ride-hailing, NFTA (Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority) may face a $2M in losses from ride-hailing at the airport. But that’s not all. Think you can do away with taxicabs? Think again. “One thing we did hear from someone who came back late, I think it was on the Fourth of July. Their plane arrived at 1:30. They found it difficult. They couldn’t find Uber or Lyft. They were nowhere to be found. So that’s why keeping the taxicab service for those late night arrivals is important.”