Tuesday, April 11, 2017

"With Uber Limping Around Wounded, Lyft Makes A Deal With Wall Street’s Angel Of Death"

From DealBreaker:
Just a few short weeks ago, Uber was a true Alpha. Travis Kalanick’s brainchild was synonymous with the “On-Demand Economy,” a tech juggernaut with a $70 billion valuation hellbent on sucking the private equity market dry before gracing with public markets with its magical stock offering.

The mere notion of an “Uber competitor” was laughable.

But it’s amazing what rampant allegations of a toxic misogynistic corporate culture, your CEO berating a driver on camera and analysts thinking that you might be a “Ponzi scheme of ambition” will do.

So now we’re not laughing so hard at Uber’s competitors, and it’s most famous rival is clearly smelling blood in the water.

According to its “blog,” KKR has participated in a new $600 million financing round that will value Lyft at $7.5 billion. While those numbers are nice, what’s really important is that Lyft just partnered with Henry Kravis to hunt down a wounded rival. And don’t nobody kill-off rivals like Henry fucking Kravis....MUCH MORE
Slightly different headline at VentureBeat:
Lyft confirms $600 million in new funding at $7.5 billion valuation