Uber is riding high in China

Company plans to operate in 50 cities over the next year

Uber Technologies isn’t just ramping up its business in China — the mobile carbooking service is starting to draw investment interest there as well.

A unit of China’s Citic Group is planning to invest $ 100 million in the San Francisco- based company, a person familiar with the matter said.

Landing an investment from the state- controlled entity may help accelerate Uber’s business in China. It’s investing more than 7 billion yuan ($ 1.1 billion) to expand in the country, with plans to start operating in 50 midsize cities in the next year.

Users of the Uber app complete almost 1 million rides daily in China, which is is expected to outgrow Uber’s U. S. home market by the end of this year, Chief Executive Travis Kalanick wrote in a letter to investors in June.

Citic- CP Asset Management, a joint venture between Citic Trust and Citic- Prudential Fund Management, plans to invest about 80 percent of the $ 100 million in Uber and about 20 percent in its China unit, said the person, who asked not be identified because the plans are private.

Uber has said that its China unit could at some point be Chinese without frame.

Uber’s Beijing- based spokeswoman Huang Xue couldn’t immediately comment. A call to Citic- CP Asset Management outside usual business hours went unanswered.

It wasn’t clear how the latest investment would impact Uber’s valuation, which was pegged at about $ 50 billion in the last financing round. listed on the stock market, providing a time