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Lyft valued at $24.3 billion in first ride-hailing IPO

29Mar By reutersNo Comments

Market

Lyft valued at $24.3 billion in first ride-hailing IPO

Lyft Inc was valued at $24.3 billion in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a ride-hailing startup, raising more than it had set off to do as investors overlooked uncertainty over its path to becoming a profitable company. Lyft's IPO sets the stage for the stock market debut of larger rival Uber Technologies Inc, which Reuters has reported will kick off in April. Uber has been told by its investment bankers that it could be valued at as much as $120 billion. The success of the IPO came despite Lyft's steep losses, criticism of its dual-class share structure and some concerns over its strategy for autonomous driving, for fear of missing out on the company's strong revenue growth. "In a good market, people look beyond things. They don't see the problems as much," said Brian H...

Lyft beats bigger rival Uber, File for $2 billion IPO

18Mar By PriyankaNo Comments

Market

Lyft beats bigger rival Uber, File for $2 billion IPO

USA based online cab aggregator platform Lyft beat bigger rival Uber Technologies in filing for an IPO. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse and Jefferies managing Lyft's IPO. Founded in 2012, the San Francisco based company currently valued at about $15 billion. The cab sharing platform was founded by John Zimmer and Logan Green. However, Lyft did not specify the number of shares in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lyft company is planning for the roadshow to fetch the interest of investors due to escalating trade tensions between the United States and China, which causes turmoil in the financial markets. Investors main concern is the recent stock market weakness that could result in reduced interest in their road shows or fail to fetch them a reaso...

Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal Invested $21 Million in Ola

14Jan By AdityaNo Comments

FUNDING

Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal Invested $21 Million in Ola

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal has pumped in about Rs 150 crore in ride-hailing platform Ola, though the flipkart founder committed 650 crore in Ola. According to documents filed with the Corporate Affairs Ministry."... 70,588 fully and compulsorily convertible, cumulative 'Series J' Preference Shares' having face value of Rs 10 having the rights, privileges and preferences... is hereby allotted at a subscription price of Rs 21,250," the documents showed. This translates into an investment of about Rs 650 crore by Bansal, who left Flipkart after the US retail giant Walmart picked up 77 per cent stake in the e-commerce company for $16 billion. The resolution was passed at a board meeting of ANI Technologies, the entity that runs Ola, on January 12, according to the documents. ...

Alibaba-backed Ride Hailing company Raised “millions of funds”

29Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Alibaba-backed Ride Hailing company Raised “millions of funds”

Alibaba-backed Hellobike which is one of the largest bike-sharing apps announced that it raised “millions of funds” in a new funding round. The company declined to reveal details on the funding amount and use of the proceeds. The round was led by Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of Alibaba and maker behind digital wallet Alipay, and Primavera Capital, a Chinese investment firm that’s backed other mobility startups including electric automaker Xpeng and car trading platform Souche. The fledgling startup also got SoftBank interested in shelling out an investment, The Information reported in November. The fresh capital arrived about a year after it secured $350 million from investors including Ant Financial. It’s interesting to note that while both Ofo and Hellobike fall unde...

15Dec By Gauri SinghNo Comments

CHINA

BMW Launches Online Ride-hailing Service in China

The BMW-owned car-sharing service called ReachNow has reportedly launched a ride-hailing service in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, on Friday. The move makes BMW the first foreign enterprise given the green light for online ride-hailing operation in China. Aiming at the huge high-end online car-hailing market, the company stated that a fleet of 200 BMW 5 Series models had hit the road in Chengdu at the preliminary stage, and half of the vehicles were plug-in hybrid ones. Customers can hail a car after installing the ReachNow app. Jochen Goller, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China, said China's high-end car-hailing service market has great development potential. China's ride-hailing market is dominated by Didi Chuxing, which offers services to 550...

Uber’s Manik Gupta Promoted as the Chief Product Officer

17Nov By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

Uber’s Manik Gupta Promoted as the Chief Product Officer

The ride hailing major Uber has promoted Manik Gupta as the chief product officer of the company who has been the interim product lead at Uber since the departure of Daniel Graf in April this year. Prior to that, he ran Uber's marketplace and maps product teams for three years where he was responsible for creating mapping solutions and marketplace technologies. This move has come at a time when Uber is transitioning itself from being a taxi hailing service to an end-to-end transportation service provider. He stated that riders can connect with a private car to get from point A to B, but the company can support other transportation modes, too. “My priorities are to leverage and refine the technology that powers our ridesharing experience to support our big bets like Eats, bikes, and sco...

Cab Aggregator Grab Ties up With MasterCard to Offer Virtual Debit Cards

25Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Cab Aggregator Grab Ties up With MasterCard to Offer Virtual Debit Cards

Ride hailing company Grab has reportedly has announced its plans to introduce virtual pre-paid debit in collaboration with Mastercard. This move is the biggest digital payment push in Southeast Asia to date. The particular deal will witness its Grab Pay business offer Grab’s 110 million registered users the option to use a virtual Mastercard to make payments both online and in-person. With this partnership, the users will be able to use physical Grab Pay cards or virtual ones, the latter being a card number, expiry date, and other details that are held within the Grab app. “We see Grab Pay as a glue that goes across all the products we offer, and rewards our users for using them,” Reuben Lai, senior managing director at Grab Financial said. “Grab Pay users spend two times more than ...

GO-JEK to Bring in 200 Engineers on Board in Bengaluru

5Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

News

GO-JEK to Bring in 200 Engineers on Board in Bengaluru

Indonesia-based ride-hailing player called GO-JEK has been planning to appoint 200 engineers in Bengaluru. This is being done to expand the portfolio of products in food delivery, taxi-sharing, logistics and digital payments among others. This step is being taken by the company with an aim to expand its presence across SouthEast Asia. In May, GO-JEK had said it would invest $500 million to enter markets like Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It was last month that the company forayed into Vietnam's capital of Hanoi under the brand Go-Viet. With this, GO-JEK stated that it would be bringing in key officials across various product segments such as Data Scientists, Full-stack engineers, Data Engineers, Product Managers, UI/UX designers and Backend Engineers. The basic purpos...

Dubai-based Careem Buys Tech & Talent of Indian Bus-shuttle Platform

25Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION, MIDDLE EAST

Dubai-based Careem Buys Tech & Talent of Indian Bus-shuttle Platform

Dubai-based ride-hailing company Careem has acquired a part of Indian bus-shuttle service platform called Commut. The amount of the deal is yet not disclosed and with this, the company is looking to expand to mass transport across 100 cities. Following the acquisition, Careem will take over Commut's talent and technology. Founded in 2015 by six IIIT-Hyderabad graduates, Commut claims to have served over 70,000 customers and onboarded 400 driver-partners. "We are always looking to invest in new technologies and high-calibre people to help solve complex local problems. And mass transportation is one of the biggest issues facing cities in the Greater Middle East," Careem stated. "Improving the quality and availability of mass transportation will help to create affordable transport option...

Dubai’s Ride-Hailing Firm Careem to Launch Services in Sudan

10Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

MIDDLE EAST

Dubai’s Ride-Hailing Firm Careem to Launch Services in Sudan

Careem, the leading ride-hailing company in the Middle East has announced that it has started a service in Sudan, one of few international companies to enter the country since US economic sanctions were lifted last year. Following this move, Careem has hired 10 Sudanese employees and signed up hundreds of drivers to its app to launch operations in Khartoum, which is the capital of Sudan. The company is planning to have 30 employees in Sudan and have its existence in at least one other city in the northeast African country by the end of the year. "My goal and aim is to cover as many (cities) as possible in the next one or two years," Careem's Managing Director for Emerging Markets Ibrahim Manna stated. It has been stated that Sudan has the potential to be one of biggest markets of C...

6Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments

MIDDLE EAST

Uber In Talks To Merge With Careem In Middle East

Uber Technologies is in preliminary talks with the Middle East cab service company Careem Networks for the purpose of combining their ride-hailing services in the Middle East. Both the cab companies have discussed various considerable deal structures but have still not come to an agreement. According to the reports, current leaders of Careem would be managing the newly combined business, as well as retaining one or both of the companies' local brands. Another proposal that has been reported is that the Uber will be acquiring the Middle-East ride-hailing mobile application. If not acquiring Careem wholly, Uber stated that it would need to own more than half of the combined company. To this, Careem has yet not declined or accepted any comments. "Our ambition is to build a lasting inst...

SoftBank Encouraging Uber to Merge Operations with Ola

29Mar By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

News

SoftBank Encouraging Uber to Merge Operations with Ola

Several news sources are reporting that Japanese giant investor SoftBank Group is putting pressure on Indian ride-hailing company Ola to merge with American rival Uber as part of a consolidation plan in India which represent the fastest growing market for ride hailing. SoftBank is currently the largest investor in both the companies and are reported to have been holding talks for over a year concerning the merge. The wish of Softbank to see the deal go through intensified after Uber decided to leave the ride-hailing market of Southeast Asia after admitting defeat to local competitor Grab last week. Reports suggest that the deal will be completed in the coming two months as both companies wish to have controlling stakes in the deal. This is the main reason why the deal is taking so long ...