Lyft gets US$248m investment lift from Saudi prince

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding , the investment firm of billionaire Prince Alwaleed Talal, said yesterday it had led a group of investors which bought 5.3% of US ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc for US$247.7 million (RM1.1 billion).

Lyft, Uber Technologies Inc’s biggest competitor in the United States, is looking to raise up to US$1 billion in a Series F funding round, according to filing provided by VC experts earlier this week.

Kingdom, Prince Alwaleed and other parties invested US$100 million in the Series F capital increase, with Kingdom taking a US$31 million share, the Saudi firm said in a bourse filing without naming the other investors.

In addition, Kingdom and Prince Alwaleed invested US$147.7 million to acquire preferred shares in Lyft in the secondary market. Kingdom’s share of this investment came to US$73.9 million.

Kingdom, which now owns 2.3% of Lyft on an as-converted basis, used existing available funds for the acquisition, it said.

Lyft, a privately held transportation network company based in San Francisco, makes a smartphone app that facilitates peerto-peer ridesharing by connecting passengers who need a ride with drivers who have a car.

Kingdom and Alwaleed are major investors in US companies in the technology and other sectors; together they own more than 5% of Twitter Inc. – Reuters