US-based ride hailing platform Lyft has expanded a funding round led by CapitalG, the growth equity arm of internet and technology group Alphabet, from $500m to $1.5bn, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
E-commerce firm Rakuten also took part in the round, as did Fidelity Investments, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, AllianceBernstein, Baillie Gifford, KKR and Janus Henderson, according to a statement by Lyft. It valued the company at $11.5bn post-money.
Lyft’s on-demand ride service is the second most popular in the US, behind only Uber, and it is gearing up for an international expansion that will start with selected cities in Canada. The round’s first tranche was closed in October 2017, though only CapitalG was named as an investor.
John Zimmer, co-founder and president of Lyft, said in the statement: “We will continue to invest in our community and look forward to an even bigger 2018.”
The company has now raised about $3.6bn altogether, including $250m in a 2014 series D round featuring e-commerce group Alibaba, Coatue Management, Third Point Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Mayfield Fund that valued it at $2bn pre-money.
Rakuten, internet group Tencent, conglomerate Icahn Enterprises and China-based on-demand ride platform Didi Chuxing joined Alibaba to invest another $680m the following year.
Automotive manufacturer General Motors led Lyft’s $1bn series F round, which closed in January 2016, and which included Alibaba, Didi Chuxing, Janus Capital and Kingdom Holding at a $5.5bn post-money valuation.
Lyft then received $600m in an April 2017 round backed by Rakuten, Baillie Gifford, AllianceBernstein, KKR Next Generation Technology Fund, Janus Capital Group and PSP Investments, before pulling in $25m from carmaker Jaguar Land Rover and its InMotion Ventures subsidiary two months later.