Tiger Global Notches $1 Billion Win on Ride-Hailing App Didi

(Bloomberg) -- Tiger Global Management's early wager on Didi Global Inc., China's Uber, is paying off. Its investment is now worth more than $1 billion.

Chase Coleman's firm amassed a 1.5% stake in Didi before the ride-hailing app made its trading debut in the second-largest U.S. initial public offering by a Chinese company on record. Shares were priced at $14, raising $4.4 billion in the offering and giving the company a market value of more than $67 billion. Didi opened at $16.65 on Wednesday but ended the trading day at $14.14.

Tiger Global, which first backed Didi in 2014 by participating in a Series C funding round, had invested $100 million in the company before the IPO, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified. Most of that cash was put into the company in 2014, though the firm later sold in and out of some shares. In total, Tiger Global made a $1 billion gain on top of its initial wager, the person said.

Didi is the latest venture capital wager for the money manager, which has long-employed a strategy of betting early and big on online, consumer and financial-technology companies. The firm reaped at least $1 billion after Peloton Interactive Inc.'s IPO, and also scored billions of dollars from an early gamble on Indian e-commerce company Flipkart and from backing Chinese retailer JD.com.

The Didi investment was one of several bets Tiger Global made on ride-hailing companies around 2014. The money manager also invested in India's Ola Cabs, Singapore-based Grab Holdings Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., the person said. Scott Shleifer, who co-founded Tiger Global's venture capital unit, led the Didi investment.

A spokeswoman for the firm, which manages $65 billion split between its hedge fund and venture business, declined to comment.

While the venture capital unit -- which has invested in more than 400 companies since it started --- scored another win with Didi's IPO, the firm's stock-picking hedge fund has struggled as holdings in other Chinese companies including JD.com and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. slipped.

Didi is going public amid a record year globally for IPOs. The growth in special purpose acquisition companies along with unprecedented monetary stimulus has fueled a wave of public listings.

As of end of day Wednesday, Didi had a market value of nearly $68 billion, which is still below the peak of a range that had stretched up to $100 billion as recently as a few months ago.