(Adds details, background)
May 15 (Reuters) – Ride-sharing company Lyft Inc said it raised $ 150 million, led by a $ 100 million investment from activist investor Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises LP.
Icahn joins a long list of backers for the three-year old startup, including Andreessen Horowitz, New York-based technology hedge-fund Coatue Management, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and hedge fund Third Point Management.
One of Icahn’s managing directors, Jonathan Christodoro, will join Lyft’s board, Lyft said in a statement on Friday.
Lyft, known for cars sporting fluffy pink moustaches, uses a smartphone app to match riders with paid drivers who use their own cars rather than livery vehicles.
The San Francisco-based company had raised $ 530 million in a funding round led by Japanese online retailer Rakuten Inc in March.
That funding round had valued Lyft at about $ 2.5 billion, which is much less than Uber Technologies Inc’s roughly $ 40 billion valuation. (Reporting by Sai Sachin R in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
No comments:
Post a Comment