CapitalG, a growth investment fund under Alphabet has led $1bn round of investment in ride-hailing company Lyft.
With this investment, Lyft’s valuation has gone up to $11bn. CapitalG’s partner David Lawee will be joining Lyft’s board. In the previous round of funding in April, the firm was valued at $7.5bn, reported Recode .
The investors in that round included KKR, Baillie Gifford, Alliance Bernstein, Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) along with Rakuten and Janus Capital.
Lyft stated that while in the beginning of this year it was covering 54% of US, it presently claims to be available in 95% of the country. It also claims to have completed its 500 millionth mile.
The company said: "While we’ve made progress towards our vision, we’re most excited about what lies ahead.
"The fact remains that less than 0.5% of miles traveled in the US happen on rideshare networks. This creates a huge opportunity to best serve our cities’ economic, environmental, and social futures."
In June, Lyft announced a partnership with autonomous vehicle technology firm nuTonomy to optimize passenger experience in self-driving cars.
Under the partnership, the two companies will align their technology platforms to collect data for research and insights into the various aspects of passenger comfort and safety during a ride in an autonomous vehicle.
In February, Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, had filed a lawsuit against Uber for allegedly using its stolen technology on autonomous driving. Soon, many patrons of Uber turned to Lyft.
In 2016, Lyft as well as Uber posted losses. Lyft’s losses stood at $600m, but later the company stated that it would become profitable by 2018.