Online taxi hailing application Uber has raised around $1 billion in funding from Microsoft and The Times Group’s parent company Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), reports re/code. This brings the company’s total funding to over $5 billion according to reports. Apparently authorised over 2 months ago, the funding will be useful to expand to markets outside the US, most noticeably in India (its second largest market), where Uber said it would pump $1 billion over the coming year. In India, it will invest this money in the next 6-9 months to improve its operators, expand to other cities, develop new products and payment solutions and set up a better support network. According to the re/code report, Uber India has been growing at 40% month on month with expectations to hit over 1 million trips daily in the next 6-9 months, the same time frame in which it will utilise its funding. $1.8 billion from Series E stock sales: In December, Fortune reported that Uber had filed to authorise up to $1.8 billion of new Series E preferred stock in Delaware, US. At that time, experts valued the company at $40 billion in case the shares were issued. Before that, it had closed $1.5 billion in funding led by Fidelity Investments. Uber has not led a trouble free life since its inception. Travis Kalanick, co-founder and CEO, said on its blog then that, “...To that end, we have just raised a financing round of $1.2 billion, with additional capacity remaining for…
