Lyft’s initial public offering of 32.5 million shares was priced at $72 per share on Thursday. This would value the company at more than $20 billion and hit the top of its expected range.
Shares in the ride-hailing company are expected to start trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, under the ticker “LYFT.”
The company faces formidable competition from Uber, according to its S-1 filing released earlier this month. Lyft claimed 39 percent of the U.S. market at the end 2018, up 17 percentage points over two years, it said in the filing.
In 2018, Lyft reported:
Net loss: $911 million, wider by 32 percent from 2017
Revenue: $2.2 billion, double the revenue it saw in 2017
Bookings: $8.1 billion, an increase of 76 percent from 2017
Funded early on by venture firms including Floodgate, K9 Ventures, Mayfield Fund, and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Lyft is one of several maturing tech start-ups expected to go public this year. Others expected to go public in 2019 include Uber, Pinterest, Zoom and Slack. (Uber, Lyft’s chief rival, is expected to release its S-1 and go public next month.)
Founded by CEO Logan Green and President John Zimmer in 2007, Lyft launched its ride-hailing app in 2012. In its earlier years, Lyft operated a service called Zimride that focused on long-distance, shared car rides and car-sharing programs on college campuses.
Lyft has been named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 List three times, ranking fifth on the 2018 list.
J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and Jefferies are the lead underwriters of the offering.
