Venture-funded, ride-sharing service Lyft has raised a Series G investment round of $500 million, valuing the privately held company at around $7.45 billion, up from a $5.5 billion valuation after a Series F round raised nearly $1 billion in December 2015.
According to Equidate, a stock market for private tech companies, there are now 225 million shares of Lyft outstanding at a per share price of $32.15. Prior to the new funding round, Lyft had 206 million shares outstanding at a price of $26.79 per share.
The company’s chief rival, privately held Uber, closed a $1.2 billion follow-up round in February and is currently valued at $69.8 billion. That works out to $48.77 for each of 1 billion shares outstanding according to Equidate.
Investors in Lyft’s latest round were not named, but previous rounds included Fortress Investment Group, Rakuten, Carl Icahn, and Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing (listed under its former name, Didi Kuaidi). Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) invested $1 billion in Didi last year and Didi has also invested $1 billion in Uber.
Uber and CEO Travis Kalanick have been making headlines recently for all sorts of reasons, including a recent report in The New York Times on how the company manipulates its drivers psychologically and a recent lawsuit filed by Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Waymo division related to the theft of self-driving car technology.
Lyft president John Zimmer recently declared the company “woke” (i.e., tuned into social injustice, especially racism, and has expressed a commitment to stopping it). While Uber CEO Kalanick cost the company some customers by agreeing to participate in President Trump’s business advisory council, Lyft has escaped any connection with Trump even though investors like Carl Icahn and Peter Thiel are close to the Trump administration.
But another common definition of woke is to act like you care about something you really don’t care about at all. Being woke, of course, is no bellwether of an IPO or of profits for investors, either for Uber or Lyft. But it wouldn’t hurt either much to be more woke.
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