GV, a corporate venturing subsidiary of internet and technology provider Google, is considering divesting its entire remaining stake in US-based, publicly-listed ride hailing service Uber, CEO David Krane told TechCrunch on Friday.
Uber floated in an $8.1bn initial public offering in May this year after pricing its shares at $45.00 each, but its share price has since dipped below $30. GV invested $258m as part of a $361m round in 2013 that valued it at $3.5bn, and backed its $1.2bn series D the following year at an $18.2bn valuation.
The unit sold a chunk of its stake to a consortium led by telecommunications group SoftBank at a $48bn valuation in late 2017, and Alphabet had a 5.2% stake that was diluted to 4.2% in the IPO. At Uber’s current market cap that would be worth between $2bn and $2.1bn.
The six-month post-IPO lock-up period will expire next month, at which time Krane said GV would have a “big decision to make”.
“This company has an unmistakable brand,” Krane said, on the stage of the TechCrunch Disrupt event. “It operates in hundreds of cities around the world. It has scale, it has a moat around it that is touched by almost no one in the category. So honestly, we are long term.
“We are bullish on this. And I think it is an interesting investment opportunity. And it happens to be on sale today.”
Krane also said GV, which was launched in 2010, is now “looking after” a total of about $5bn, though he did not confirm whether he was referring to funding deployed or assets being managed. He added that the unit will likely close 100 deals in 2019 and will have a 300-strong active portfolio by the end of the year.
