Lyft CEO and co-founder Logan Green with CapitalG’s David Lawee and Lyft president and co-founder John Zimmer
The tangled web of ride-hailing investments just got a little more complicated.
On Thursday, Lyft announced it had just raised $1 billion from CapitalG, the growth investment arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet. The new round raises the ride-hailing company’s valuation to $11 billion, according to Lyft.
The investment signals a massive shift in Alphabet’s alliance in the ride-hailing space. In 2013, Google Ventures made its largest investment ever when it invested over $250 million in an early stake in Uber. Alphabet’s head of corporate development, David Drummond, even joined the Uber board. In a 2016 Bloomberg Television interview, Google Ventures CEO Bill Maris said Google’s total investment in Uber surpassed $300 million and was its largest investment.
As Uber got more interested in developing autonomous vehicles, there were even talks for the two to partner together until it all fell apart.
In February, Google’s self-driving car spin-off, Waymo, sued Uber for allegedly stealing its intellectual property and using it to get ahead in the race towards autonomous cars. Drummond had left the Uber board as relationships between the two withered.
That’s when Waymo started getting cozy with Lyft. In May, the two announced they’ll be working together on a pilot project, which is likely to launch in Arizona later this year. Aside from working with Waymo, Lyft was the only ride-hailing service namechecked in Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs Toronto project this week.
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The $1 billion investment from CapitalG though shows Alphabet is willing to be more than a partner with Lyft and actually bet on the company’s future growth. As part of the deal, CapitalG’s David Lawee will take a board seat.
In the game of ride-hailing musical chairs, it’s clear whose side Alphabet is on, at least for now.
With reports from Forbes
