Lyft has raised $500 million in additional funding, valuing the Uber competitor between $6.9 billion and $7.5 billion according to several media reports. The money, which Lyft was rumored to be attempting to raise last month, will fund the company’s competition with the much more valuable — and better funded — Uber.
Lyft has doubled its valuation since its last capital raise, in January 2016, when the company was valued at $4.5 billion. The raise is the company’s 11th according to Crunchbase and brings the company to more than $2.5 billion in total funds raised since 2008. Investor in this funding round were not disclosed.
They company has been aggressively expanding to compete with Uber, and Lyft executives have declared the company “woke” or alert to social justice, in an effort to delineate itself from its scandal-plagued competitor. Earlier this year, Lyft announced that it would be donating $1 million to the ACLU following the signing of President Trump’s first immigration order.