Uber, a US-based ride hailing service backed by corporate investors including telecommunications firm SoftBank, is raising up to $600m in a secondary share sale, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
The investors in the round so far include investment manager Coatue Management, private equity and venture capital fund manager Altimeter Capital and private equity group TPG.
The investment will value the company at $62bn, more than the $48bn valuation at which a SoftBank-led consortium bought secondary shares in December 2017, but less than the $69bn valuation at which Uber last raised primary funding.
Uber employees with at least 1,000 shares will be able to sell them as part of the round, with each share valued at $40, though there is a $10m upper limit for sales.
The increased secondary valuation is good news for the company, and comes after it grew net revenue 67% year on year in Q1 2018 to about $2.5bn, while almost halving its quarterly loss to $304m.
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, said in a statement: “We are off to a terrific start in 2018, with our rides business beating internal plan and continuing to grow at healthy rates, while we significantly reduce our losses and maintain our leadership position around the world.
“Given the size of the opportunity ahead of us and our goal of making Uber a true mobility platform, we plan to reinvest any over-performance even more aggressively this year, both in our core business as well as in big bets like Uber Eats globally.”
Uber had raised $12.8bn in debt and equity financing prior to the latest round, in addition to the $7.2bn secondary investment made by SoftBank, TPG and Dragoneer in December.
The company’s shareholders include media companies Axel Springer and Bennett Coleman and Co, internet and technology group Alphabet, software producer Microsoft, on-demand ride provider Didi Chuxing and a host of institutional investors.