Lyft, the US-based ride hailing service backed by corporates including General Motors (GM), Alphabet, Alibaba, Rakuten and Magna International, raised $600m yesterday in a round that valued it at $15.1bn post-money.
Financial services group Fidelity Management and Research led the round, which included hedge fund Senator Investment Group. It increased the company’s overall equity funding to $4.4bn.
Lyft runs an app-based ride ordering platform that had more than 610,000 daily active drivers across the US and Canada as of the end of 2017, a year when it was responsible for more than 375 million rides.
The latest funding followed the launch earlier this month of an app that enables passengers to coordinate their lifts with each other more effectively, and which can integrate with municipal transit agencies.
The valuation is a sizeable jump from the reported $11.7bn valuation at which automotive components maker Magna International invested $200m in the company in March this year. Lyft and Magna are collaborating on the development of autonomous driving technology.
Lyft’s first corporate funding came in a $250m series D round featuring e-commerce group Alibaba as well as Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Coatue Management, Third Point Ventures and Mayfield Fund in 2014.
Alibaba also invested in the company’s $680m series E round the following year, joining e-commerce firm Rakuten, internet group Tencent, fellow on-demand ride provider Didi Chuxing and conglomerate Icahn Enterprises.
Automotive manufacturer GM led a $1bn round for Lyft at the start of 2016 that also featured Alibaba, Didi Chuxing, Janus Capital and Kingdom Holding, before Lyft raised $600m from Rakuten, AllianceBernstein, Baillie Gifford, Janus Henderson and KKR in April 2017.
InMotion Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, invested a further $25m two months later. CapitalG, the growth equity arm of internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet, subsequently led a $1.5bn round for Lyft in December.
Fidelity also participated in the December round, along with Rakuten, AllianceBernstein, Baillie Gifford, KKR, Janus Henderson and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.