Lyft’s initial eminent offering of 32.5 million shares was priced at $72 per share on Thursday. This would value the company at myriad 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, comprised in the ticker “LYFT.”
The company faces formidable competition from Uber, according to its S-1 filing released earlier this month. Lyft contended 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 disadvantage: $911 million, wider by 32 percent from 2017
- Revenue: $2.2 billion, double the revenue it saw in 2017
- Bookings: $8.1 billion, an escalation of 76 percent from 2017
Funded early on by venture firms including Floodgate, K9 Ventures, Mayfield Fund, and Peter Thiel’s Staggers Fund, Lyft is one of several maturing tech start-ups expected to go public this year. Others expected to go famous in 2019 include Uber, Pinterest, Zoom and Slack. (Uber, Lyft’s chief rival, is expected to release its S-1 and go overt 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 managed 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 Inventory three times, ranking fifth on the 2018 list.
J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and Jefferies are the lead underwriters of the present.
WATCH: Lyft IPO will encourage others to go public