Lyft sets high-end $23B value for IPO

Lyft hopes to be valued at as much as $23 billion in its initial public offering, the ride-hailing company said in a regulatory filing Monday as it entered the final stage of its push to become the next big publicly traded technology startup in the United States. The target value is significantly greater than the $15.1 billion that Lyft was valued at in a private funding round last year.

The updated prospectus coincides with the start of the company’s so-called "road show," a two-week run of meetings during which Lyft executives and advisers will try to persuade prospective investors to grab a piece of what probably will be one of the year’s biggest public offerings — at least until Lyft’s ride-hailing rival, Uber, proceeds with its own offering in the next few months.

The new prospectus proposes a high-end share price of $62 to $68, a range that would generate about $2.1 billion, and perhaps as much as $2.4 billion if demand for shares is great enough for the company to increase the number it makes available.

The filing also sheds new light on the holdings of Lyft’s founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, who started the company in 2007 and have built it into a smaller but still fierce rival to Uber.

Green and Zimmer are set to reap hundreds of millions of dollars apiece as a result of the offering, the prospectus shows. Green’s stake would be worth about $569 million at the high end of the expected initial share price. Zimmer’s would be worth about $393 million.