Uber might be worth $40 billion, despite everything

Rumoured valuation would mean price has more than doubled since June, despite run of scandals

The Uber app allows passengers to hail a taxi with a smartphone (PA)

Uber could be valued at $40 billion in its current drive for funding, despite a run of scandals that have seen users threaten to stop using the app.

The taxi start-up is raising at least $1 billion of new cash through a deal that could value it at $35 billion to $40 billion, reports Bloomberg. That valuation is up from $17 billion when it completed another financing round in June.

The company has seen a range of disputes over that time — the most recent and high-profile of which was an executive’s alleged suggestion that the company should hire a team of researchers to dig up dirt on the private lives of its critics.

But a leaked internal presentation last week said that the company was on track to soon generate $10 billion of revenue per year, according to Business Insider.

Uber has had a history of channelling negative press and reception into success. When black cab drivers in London staged a protest against the company in June, for example, registrations on the app shot up 850% amid the extra publicity.