US ride-hailing firm Lyft has raised $600m in new round of financing at a $7.5bn valuation. The investors in the funding round include KKR, Baillie Gifford, Alliance Bernstein, Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) along with Rakuten and Janus Capital. In the first quarter of 2017, Lyft claims to have been introduced in more than a 100 cities and operates across 300 cities in the US. KKR Co-CEO and co-founder George Roberts said: “Lyft is fundamentally changing the way people think about car ownership and transportation. “With ridesharing increasingly in high demand, we are proud to partner with Lyft for their differentiated customer-centric culture, impressive growth strategy and exceptional management team, and to work together to change transportation for the better for both passengers and drivers.” Lyft in its press release said: “We are continuing to focus on the people behind our business, making sure to take care of our drivers, passengers and team members. We have big plans on the horizon, and will continue investing in new technology and hospitality in order to create experiences that passengers and drivers will love.” Recently Lyft's rival, Uber saw customers boycotting it as a former employee alleged sexual harassment. In January, Uber also witnessed a social media campaign against it to delete the app, as the company allegedly tried to profit off of protesting cab drivers by turning off surge pricing. This sparked a wave of protests on social media asking people to delete or uninstall the app. In February, Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, filed a lawsuit against Uber for allegedly using its stolen technology on autonomous driving. Soon, many patrons of Uber turned to Lyft. For the first time, Lyft surpassed Uber in terms of app downloads on app store. In 2016, Lyft as well as Uber posted losses. Lyft’s losses stood at $600m, but recently, it stated to become profitable by 2018, as the losses could reduce this year. Image: Lyft raises $600m in new round of funding. Photo: Courtesy of Lyft, Inc.
Ride-hailing service Lyft has raised $600m, valuing the company at $7.5bn, in a round that included KKR, Alliance Bernstein and Baillie Gifford. "We have big plans on the horizon, and will continue investing in new technology and hospitality", Lyft said in a statement. Losses will be reduced this year and it will make a profit in 2018, the company said. Rival Uber, which may be valued at as much as $70bn, has been the subject of law suits and social media boycotts this year.