Lyft

About

Lyft is a ridesharing and transportation platform founded by Logan Green and John Zimmer ¹. The company traces its origins to Zimride, a long-distance intercity carpooling service focused on college transportation that Green and Zimmer founded in 2007 ¹. Green was inspired by the informal transit systems he observed in Zimbabwe and his work on ride-matching software at UC Santa Barbara, while Zimmer brought hospitality experience and a background as a real estate analyst at Lehman Brothers ¹.

Lyft launched in the summer of 2012 as a peer-to-peer ridesharing service under the Zimride umbrella ¹. In May 2013, the company changed its name from Zimride to Lyft, and in July 2013 sold the original Zimride service to Enterprise Holdings to focus exclusively on the Lyft product ¹. The company became known for its distinctive large pink furry mustaches attached to drivers’ cars and a culture of riders sitting in the front seat and fist-bumping their drivers ².

Lyft went public on March 29, 2019, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker LYFT, raising $2.34 billion at a $24.3 billion valuation with shares priced at $72 ³. Lyft raised a total of approximately $5.02 billion across 18 funding rounds from 162 investors ⁴.

Lyft is headquartered in San Francisco, California ¹.

Funding History

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What Investors Say

Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz, who led the $60 million Series C, explained why he picked Lyft over Uber: “We liked the character and culture of the Lyft guys better than Uber and continue to” ¹³.

Scott Weiss, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, noted that Lyft reminded him of Airbnb — another company a16z had made a big bet on ⁶. On what set Lyft apart from competitors like Sidecar and Uber, Weiss said the differentiator was “a secret sauce that others don’t, which really is that it’s about the community and the experience more than it’s about the money” ⁶.

Weiss highlighted Lyft’s explosive growth as a key factor: two months before the investment, Lyft was doing 14,000 rides a week; by the time of funding, it had reached 30,000 rides per week ⁶.

Floodgate (Mike Maples) was among the earliest institutional backers, investing at the seed stage in 2010 and continuing to invest in the Series A and B rounds ⁵.

What Founders Say

Logan Green on his partnership with John Zimmer: “If I could build it, he could sell it; when I brought in tech, he brought in hospitality. In meetings, we could read each other’s mind. Again and again he made the impossible possible, pulling off what nobody else could have. John is everything I could ask for in a cofounder” ¹⁴.

John Zimmer on their relationship: “The relationship we’ve built together over the last 16 years is very rare” and “two different people with very different skills and approaches are stronger together than apart” ¹⁵.

On competing: Logan Green described Lyft’s team as “cutthroat missionaries,” explaining that “people see the missionary aspect, or see that we care about taking care of people, and assume it means we’ll be soft when it comes to competing” ¹⁶.

On believing in the vision despite investor skepticism, John Zimmer stated: “We believe in our concept so much, and really think we’ve found something broken. Logan had served on a transit board and knew public transportation in cities was broken. I came from a hospitality background and saw that 80 percent of seats in cars weren’t occupied most of the time. We knew we could solve this” ¹⁷.

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