Technology Magazine January 2018 | Page 45

4 DIDI CHUXING

Formerly known as Didi Kuaidi , Didi Chuxing is one of two ride-hailing tech firms on our list . It currently provides transport for more than 450mn people across 400 Chinese cities . Having been founded in Beijing in 2012 , the company is now worth $ 16bn . The firm offers a range of transport options in app form , including taxi hailing , private car hailing , social ride sharing in the form of Hitch , chauffer services , DiDi Bus , DiDi Test Drive and DiDi Enterprise Solutions . In 2016 , the company became the second largest online transaction platform in the world after Alibaba .

3 PALANTIR

Palantir was founded in 2004 in California and provides software and services , specialising in big data analysis . It is currently worth $ 20.5bn according to Fortune . The company produces software used by the US Intelligence Committee and the US Department of Defence in the form of Palantir Gotham , and also serves private businesses like hedge funds , banks and financial service firms with Palantir Metropolis . Its cofounder and CEO , Alexander Karp , is currently said to be worth $ 1.6bn . The firm says that in making “ products for humandriven data analysis of real world data ”, its main focus is “ creating the world ’ s best user experience for working with data ”. 45