Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the Beijing-based bike-sharing start-up Ofo amid intensified fund-raising competition in China’s so-called “Uber-for-bikes” market. One of the country’s major players in the red hot app-enabled domestic bike-sharing market, Ofo is backed by Chinese car-hailing firm Didi Chuxing in which Apple made a rare investment of USD1 billion in May 2016. Cook described the investment in Didi as “a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market”. Neither Apple nor Ofo revealed the purpose of the visit, so it is unknown whether Apple is interested in directly investing in the business, which is battling with Tencent-backed Mobike in gaining a dominant share in the fledgling but rapidly growing sector. “There is potential for cooperation between Ofo and Apple. For example, Apple Watch can be used to record and share exercising data when riding a bike,” said Wang Xiaofeng, Senior Analyst with Forrester Research. Cook’s visit comes three weeks after Ofo announced a USD450 million investment from investors including Didi Chuxing, MatrixPartners China and Citic Private Equity, which together brings the valuation of the three-year-old company to more than USD1 billion. Its biggest rival Mobike said in February that its funding in 2017 totaled USD300 million. Ofo’s daily orders in China for bike renting has exceeded 10 million and it is now looking to expand abroad. During his trip to Beijing, Tim Cook also took part in the high-profile 2017 China Development Forum, discussing the future of some key technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, the South China Morning Post reports.