Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom has acted opposite Davis Polk & Wardwell as Chinese internet giant Baidu this week announced it was investing in US taxi-booking company Uber.

The deal, announced on Wednesday, is aimed at boosting Baidu's share of China's mobile internet market, and particularly the growth of 'online to offline' services in the country, while also growing Uber's newly launched China business.

The Nasdaq-listed internet giant declined to reveal the size or value of the investment, but said it hoped to tap into Uber's client base while also providing taxi-hailing services to its existing users.

Skadden acted for Baidu on the deal, fielding a team of three corporate partners; Julie Gao in Hong Kong alongside Thomas Ivey and Michael Mies in Palo Alto.

Davis Polk is understood to have acted for Uber, though the firm did not provide confirmation.

The deal follows a spate of fund raising and acquisition transactions by China's four biggest internet companies Baidu, Sina Alibaba and Tencent, and particularly in the mobile internet space as the number of mainlanders using their handsets to get online continues to surge.

Both Skadden and Davis Polk have been active in the sector, with Skadden previously advising Baidu on it's acquisition of Groupon-like subsidiary Nuomi Holdings and Davis Polk acting as lead counsel on Baidu's New York listing of its online travel unit Qunar.

Uber, which operates in more than 250 cities around the globe, has meanwhile identified the Asia-Pacific as a key area for future growth. In China reports say it currently lags behind rivals Kuaidi Dache – backed by Alibaba, and Didi Dache, part-owned by Tencent.