As Uber deals with crises, Lyft raises $500 million
Reporting from San Francisco — San Francisco ride-hailing firm Lyft has raised $500 million from investors, according to sources with knowledge of the matter, significantly boosting its valuation as its larger competitor Uber remains mired in a string of recent scandals.
The new round of funding values the company at $7.5 billion, up from $5.5 billion last year.
The company did not say when it initiated its latest funding round, or who the investors were. Existing investors in the firm include General Motors, Alibaba, Didi Chuxing, and Andreessen Horowitz.
While Lyft remains a distant second in the ride-hailing market behind Uber, it has capitalized in recent months on Uber’s struggles, positioning itself as a “friendlier” alternative to the ride-hailing giant, and launching an aggressive expansion in the U.S., entering more than 100 cities during the first three months of 2016.
The company also curried favor from customers earlier this year when it pledged $1 million to the American Civil Liberties Union after President Trump signed an executive order banning travelers from certain Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
In contrast, Uber — whose chief executive Travis Kalanick was on a business panel advising the president — caught flak from customers for posting a tweet advertising its continued operation at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, a move some customers saw as undermining a taxi strike protesting the immigration ban. The events prompted the #DeleteUber hashtag, which resulted in some 200,000 customers deleting the app from their phones.
The recent string of scandals, which include allegations of sexual harassment, doesn’t appear to have hurt Uber too much, though. The company said in early March that it saw more growth in the first 10 weeks of 2017 than it did during the same period in 2016.
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