Ride-hailing company Lyft has reportedly raised $500m in a new round of funding that valued the company at about $7.5bn.
Uber's rival has been trying to raise investment for some time to enter new markets. In the first quarter of this year, Lyft has expanded its presence to over 100 new markets and currently operates in over 300 cities in the US.
Though Lyft’s valuation is almost ten times less than that of Uber's $62.5bn, the company seems to have been encouraged by recent consumer boycotts of its rival in the US.
In February, Uber got sued by Waymo, Google’s self-driving company for using its patented technology.
Both Lyft and Uber have been sustaining losses in the past few years. In 2016, Lyft witnessed $606m in losses but the company expects the losses to show a decline this year before emerging as profitable enterprise by 2018, reported Financial Times.
Last year when Lyft raised $1bn, its value increased to $5.5bn. General Motors has been one of the major investors in Lyft, with others including Didi Chuxing and Andreessen Horowitz.
General Motors is also not just the investor, but also its business partner. The automotive manufacturer plans to leverage Lyft as a platform to test and introduce its self-driving cars.
In a blog post written in last September, Lyft president John Zimmer stated that General Motors could deliver the first semi-autonomous vehicle for testing as early as this year.
In January this year, Lyft discontinued its international cross-booking relationship with Didi and Grab. The cross-booking helped users to book a cab on Didi app in China and hail a Lyft cab, recode reported.
