It’s hard to believe that it’s been less than a year since ride-sharing service Lyft first launched in beta, offering a low-cost alternative to on-demand black car service Uber. But not only has it grown aggressively in its home market since then, but Lyft has since begun offering service in Los Angeles and Seattle. It’s tacking on another city this weekend with a launch in Chicago. → Read More
Last week, InstantCab announced to the world that it had received a partial cease-and-desist letter from the San Francisco International Airport, asking it to stop picking up and dropping off passengers there. Well, apparently it wasn’t alone, as other new transportation startups had also received the same notice last month. SideCar, for instance, confirmed that it received a… → Read More
Uber is unsafe. Lyft, SideCar, and other ride-sharing services are unsafe. At the very least, there is the question of their safety for passengers. And why? Because they represent a new type of technology, a new way of doing things, and that is inherently scary. → Read More
It’s been a pretty big news day for Lyft, but let’s make it even bigger. TechCrunch has learned that Zimride, parent company behind the ride-sharing service, has closed a new, $15 million round of funding led by Founders Fund. Existing investors Mayfield Fund, K9 Ventures, and Floodgate also participated in the round. → Read More
There’s a ton of good news today for Lyft. The company has struck a deal with the California Public Utilities Commission that will remove fines and allow it to continue operating in the state. It also announced plans this morning to expand its service to Los Angeles. The move into L.A. marks the first expansion market for Lyft, which became available to riders in San Francisco last summer. → Read More
The Crunchies are coming: We know who the finalists are, we know that John Oliver is hosting, and we know that GZA is a special guest. However, the most important thing about the 6th Annual Crunchies, other than the companies that are being highlighted and rewarded, is you. → Read More
It was just a few months ago that the California Public Utilities Commission was writing cease-and-desist letters and issuing citations against ride-sharing services like Lyft and SideCar. But today the regulator agreed to evaluate the safety of those services, in what in what could be a big step toward legitimizing ride-sharing in the state. → Read More
YesVideo has made that sharing even easier, with Facebook integration that lets users post their vintage videos directly on their Timelines. With the integration, users will be able to title, time-stamp, and add metadata to a piece of content and it will appear in the year in which it was shot. That will allow customers to pinpoint the exact date that certain milestones or events happened. → Read More
Editor’s note: Navin Chaddha is a Managing Director at Mayfield Fund, a global early-stage venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management, whose portfolio companies leverage the drivers of cloud/SaaS, mobile, social, energytech and big data. Some current Mayfield Fund investments include Appcelerator, Fab, Marketo, Poshmark, Solarcity, and Zimride.
The U.S. e-commerce… → Read More
You ask for a ride, it rolls up, you get into the front seat and you give the driver a fist bump. This sounds like something you do when your best friend picks you up, and that’s exactly the experience that super-hot ride-sharing service Lyft wants to emulate.
I sat down with Lyft’s co-founder, John Zimmer, today, to discuss the company’s approach to community and to this ever-growing… → Read More
I’m not a fan of pitting two or more companies against one another and calling “war,” but the reality is that there’s such a thing as competition and advantage in any marketplace. One of the hottest verticals of interest as of late is transportation. I’m ready to buy a Lit Motors car, which we saw at Disrupt, and I’ve used Uber since it launched.
One of the things that I experienced this past… → Read More
Airbnb founder Nate Blecharczyk, Brit + Co founder Brit Morin, TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque, and Lyft co-founder John Zimmer took the stage here at Disrupt SF to talk about their experiences as disruptors of already-disrupted industries, but the first question from the audience was a doozy — how did each of their respective services capture their first 10,000 users? → Read More
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