Ridesharing startup Lyft, as expected, announced this morning that it is kicking off the roadshow for its IPO — setting the clock ticking for its IPO likely in the next two weeks. Around that, it also filled in some more details. The stock will trade as “LYFT” on Nasdaq, and the IPO range is currently set for between $62 and $68 per share to sell 30,770,000 shares of Class A common stock, the company said, raising up to $2.1 billion at the higher end of that range, or $1.9 billion at the lower end.
At the higher end, its valuation will be $18.5 billion, versus the projected valuation of $23 billion that we and others reported yesterday. Both would be a jump on its previous $15.1 billion valuation as of its most recent private fundraising.
Lyft also said in its updated S-1 that at the high end of the range, the maximum offering aggregate price — the maximum that it would raise at that range — will be $2,406,214,000 when considering the full range of Class A stock that will be registered, 35,385,500 shares.
(In addition to the 30,770,000 shares of Class A common stock, the company said it has an additional 4,615,500 shares in options for the underwriters, adding up to the 35 million share figure. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Jefferies LLC, UBS Securities LLC, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, RBC Capital Markets, LLC and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. are book-running managers for the offering.)
The news kicks off the timer on Lyft’s public listing at a time when all eyes are on how ridesharing companies will progress to the next stage of their growth, with Uber (valued at around $100 billion) also expected to go public imminently.
Lyft’s revenues are growing fast — Lyft took $8.1 billion in bookings and made $2.1 billion in revenues in 2018, covering 30.7 million riders and 1.9 million drivers — but the company remains unprofitable. The company posted a net loss of $911.3 million in 2018, a figure that has grown in line with revenues, but notably shrunk proportionately. In 2016, revenues were $343.3 million, while its net loss that year was $682 million.
This public listing provides a road map for how Lyft can continue to fund its operations and growth while providing liquidity for investors as it continues working on getting into the black.
Lyft said that upon completion of the IPO, CEO and co-founder Logan Green will have 29.31 percent share of the voting power of the outstanding stock, while John Zimmer, co-founder and president, will have 19.45 percent.
More to come.