Last week it was announced that Uber had confidentially filed for an IPO (right after Lyft did the same). It could go public as early as Q1 of next year. And supposedly, a valuation of $120 billion is being tossed around. The company last raised money in August of this year (from Toyota) at a $76 billion valuation.

Here are a few other interesting figures from a WSJ article published in the fall:

- Uber has indicated that it doesn’t expect to be profitable for at least another 3 years. This year it is expected to hit between $10 and $11 billion in revenue, compared to $7.78 billion last year.

- First Round Capital invested about $1.6 million in Uber’s first two fundraising rounds (2010 and 2011). If the company does in fact reach a valuation of $120 billion in the public markets, that early investment will be worth $5 billion. (First Round sold some of their shares to SoftBank in January and I’m not sure if the above figure accounts for that.)

- Over 50 companies have invested in Uber since its founding, not including a slew of individual investments from people like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

On a related note, Fred Wilson, who is far more knowledgeable on this topic than I, recently published a post talking about the relationship between the private and public markets and what could happen to (tech) valuations in 2019. 

It’s a good follow-on read to the above.

Figure: WSJ

Last week, Lyft announced a new subscription plan. 

It costs $299 every 30 days and you get 30 rides included (up to $15 each). So it represents a possible 1/3 discount on rides. If you go over the 30 rides per month or over $15 on any one ride, you simply pay the difference. Though as a subscriber, you get 5% off additional rides.

Subscriptions are good for business. They can be like an annuity. And I suspect that with the above model, there will be unutilized rides every month that the company is just able to bank. You can’t carryover rides with this plan.

But moreover, Lyft’s “All-Access Plan” is designed to help you ditch your car. Trade your car payment for a ride subscription plan. So if the numbers didn’t quite work for you before, maybe they do now. Depending on the situation, I can certainly see this plan being cost effective.

But as ride hailing/sharing continues to nibble away at public transportation and personal vehicle ownership, what will this mean for cities?

On Monday, John Zimmer and Logan Green, the co-founders of Lyft, published this Medium post announcing their “approach to partnering with cities to introduce bike and scooter sharing” to their platform. 

“Approach to partnering with cities” is undoubtedly a carefully chosen set of words given all the backlash going on right now around dockless scooters.

Nevertheless, this is an exciting announcement. I could have used a scooter this afternoon to get to a meeting. And this is all part of their larger goal of transforming Lyft into a multi-modal platform – one that will also support conventional public transit.

Here is an excerpt from the Medium post:

Transit, bikes, small electric vehicles, and infrastructure such as safe pedestrian paths and bike lanes, all play a large role in decoupling people’s right to mobility from car ownership. We know we can’t accomplish this alone, and we’re committed to working with cities and residents to bring these elements together in the most cohesive way to maximize a reduction in vehicle miles traveled.

The company has also set the goal that 

Last week it was announced that Uber had confidentially filed for an IPO (right after Lyft did the same). It could go public as early as Q1 of next year. And supposedly, a valuation of $120 billion is being tossed around. The company last raised money in August of this year (from Toyota) at a $76 billion valuation.

Here are a few other interesting figures from a WSJ article published in the fall:

- Uber has indicated that it doesn’t expect to be profitable for at least another 3 years. This year it is expected to hit between $10 and $11 billion in revenue, compared to $7.78 billion last year.

- First Round Capital invested about $1.6 million in Uber’s first two fundraising rounds (2010 and 2011). If the company does in fact reach a valuation of $120 billion in the public markets, that early investment will be worth $5 billion. (First Round sold some of their shares to SoftBank in January and I’m not sure if the above figure accounts for that.)

- Over 50 companies have invested in Uber since its founding, not including a slew of individual investments from people like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.

On a related note, Fred Wilson, who is far more knowledgeable on this topic than I, recently published a post talking about the relationship between the private and public markets and what could happen to (tech) valuations in 2019. 

It’s a good follow-on read to the above.

Figure: WSJ

Last week, Lyft announced a new subscription plan. 

It costs $299 every 30 days and you get 30 rides included (up to $15 each). So it represents a possible 1/3 discount on rides. If you go over the 30 rides per month or over $15 on any one ride, you simply pay the difference. Though as a subscriber, you get 5% off additional rides.

Subscriptions are good for business. They can be like an annuity. And I suspect that with the above model, there will be unutilized rides every month that the company is just able to bank. You can’t carryover rides with this plan.

But moreover, Lyft’s “All-Access Plan” is designed to help you ditch your car. Trade your car payment for a ride subscription plan. So if the numbers didn’t quite work for you before, maybe they do now. Depending on the situation, I can certainly see this plan being cost effective.

But as ride hailing/sharing continues to nibble away at public transportation and personal vehicle ownership, what will this mean for cities?

On Monday, John Zimmer and Logan Green, the co-founders of Lyft, published this Medium post announcing their “approach to partnering with cities to introduce bike and scooter sharing” to their platform. 

“Approach to partnering with cities” is undoubtedly a carefully chosen set of words given all the backlash going on right now around dockless scooters.

Nevertheless, this is an exciting announcement. I could have used a scooter this afternoon to get to a meeting. And this is all part of their larger goal of transforming Lyft into a multi-modal platform – one that will also support conventional public transit.

Here is an excerpt from the Medium post:

Transit, bikes, small electric vehicles, and infrastructure such as safe pedestrian paths and bike lanes, all play a large role in decoupling people’s right to mobility from car ownership. We know we can’t accomplish this alone, and we’re committed to working with cities and residents to bring these elements together in the most cohesive way to maximize a reduction in vehicle miles traveled.

The company has also set the goal that