Uber tensions: Alphabet invests Lyft $ 1 billion

The Alphabet investment fund, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital), invested $ 1 billion in a Lyft taxi call service. For the first time the deal was started in September, and now the market capitalization of Uber's main competitor in the US is estimated at $ 11 billion.

More than a taxi

Lyft co-founders Logan Greene (left) and John Zimmer (right) with new board member David Lavi

In the spring of 2017, Lyft announced a partnership with Waymo (one of the "subsidiaries" Alphabet) in the field of autonomous vehicles. Soon after, the service representatives told about the development of their own unmanned systems. Not surprisingly, the project is interested in automakers and the parent holding company Google.

According to Recode , Lyft does not lack funds. Recently, the service overcame the mark of 500 million trips, and in 2018 the company expects to become profitable. Today Lyft is available to 95% of US residents, even at the beginning of the year this figure was 54%. In other countries, the service does not work yet.

Following the deal, Lyft's board will include David Lawee, a representative of CapitalG.

And Uber what?

Recently, the relationship between Alphabet and Uber is fairly spoiled. In 2013, the search giant invested in the service through the venture fund Google Ventures (GV), but the companies increasingly turned out to be competitors, and in 2016, the Board of Directors of Uber left the top manager of Alphabet David Drummond. Lyft has its own scores to the competitor.

Now Waymo accuses Uber of stealing technologies for unmanned vehicles, but this is a separate story.

Source: Lyft