Update: Uber's China unit now valued at over $8bn after fundraising 

Uber's Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said on Friday that the ride-hailing company's Chinese unit was valued at over $8bn after its latest fund raising round; $1bn more than before the effort, as we noted earlier this week. Kalanick declined to confirm an exact figure but said that the recently closed Series B fundraising brought in "well over $1bn" adding "I thought we did remarkably well especially given the macro situation that was going on". According to Reuters, the previously unidentified investors have been named as China Minsheng Banking, real estate developer China Vanke and China Broadband Capital. Other participants in the round include Hainan Airlines parent company HNA Group, China Taiping Insurance Holdings, China Life Insurance, Guangzhou Automobile Group and CITIC Securities. Kalanick also said that despite the high valuation and fast growth in China, the company was not yet profitable in any Chinese city due to intense competition. Its main rival, Didi Kuaidi has the country's biggest share of the market and is backed by Chinese Internet heavyweights, Alibaba and Tencent.

Photo illustration of logo of car-sharing service app Uber on a smartphone over a reserved lane for taxis in a street in Madrid Thomson Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc's [UBER.UL] chief executive Travis Kalanick said on Friday the ride-hailing firm's China unit was valued at more than $8 billion after its latest fundraising round, over $1 billion more than before the effort.

Uber China's recently-closed Series B fundraising brought in "well over $1 billion", Kalanick told reporters in the Chinese capital. A spokeswoman for Uber said the series had raised over $1.2 billion but declined to confirm an exact figure.

"I thought we did remarkably well especially given the macro situation that was going on," Kalanick said.

In September, he said the unit had already raised $1.2 billion. Kalanick did not comment on how much had been raised in the four months since then.

Uber and its main rival in China, Didi Kuaidi, have spent heavily to subsidize rides to gain market share, betting on China's Internet-linked transport market becoming the world's biggest.

Despite the high valuation and fast growth in China, the San Francisco-based company was not yet profitable in any Chinese city due to intense competition, Kalanick said.

Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese Internet heavyweights Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, has the country's biggest market share of car-hailing apps.

(Reporting by Jake Spring; Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)