Lyft is officially a public company. The ride-hailing giant priced its IPO at $72 per share, valuing the Bay Area company at more than $24 billion. On Friday it started trading at $87.24 on Nasdaq under the ticker LYFT. It’s the first of several tech IPOs expected this year. Update: Shares of Lyft ended Friday up 8.7 percent, closing at $78.29.
Lyft remotely rang the opening bell from L.A. ahead of its Nasdaq debut. The company is currently awaiting its first trade. Stocks opened up, with the Dow led by Intel and Caterpillar. https://t.co/1CT5z5dySV pic.twitter.com/65ruwkpUiu
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 29, 2019
Who gets rich: Rakuten, General Motors, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, CapitalG, Floodgate, Valerie Jarrett, and Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green have the largest stakes. Lyft drivers, meanwhile, “definitely aren’t getting rich,” Quartz noted.
Balance sheet: In its IPO documents, Lyft showed revenue of $2.2 billion last year, up 103 percent year-over-year, and a net loss of $911 million, up 32 percent. The 7-year-old company claims to have 39 percent market share in the U.S., up from 22 percent in December 2016. Some are concerned with Lyft’s financial viability.
Up next: Lyft rival Uber is expected to file IPO documents in the coming weeks. Others tech companies such as Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest, Postmates, and more are also readying to go public. It’s up for debate how much upside these companies still have — some say public investors will get the short end of the stick. One thing is certain: the IPOs will mint thousands of new millionaires, particularly in the Bay Area — parties, houses, boats, bikes, and ice sculptures may follow.
