Another mega-raise in the frenetic taxi/rideshare app sector this week, with Lyft securing $150 million, $100 million of which comes from A-list investor Carl Icahn.
Icahn's involvement has raised some eyebrows in the investment community. It is reportedly unusual for Icahn to invest in early-stage businesses as he prefers to buy stock in public companies, get a place on the board, shake things up and see the stock soar.
Officially, he said:
"I believe that ridesharing is poised to become a fundamental component of our transportation infrastructure.”
Unofficially, he is reported to have described his investment as "a bargain."
Lyft's blog post confirming the deal doesn't refer to it as a Series F round, but does mention its Series E in March, which raised $530 million, led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.
Financial pages are reporting the raise as an extension to the Series E, rather than a new round.
Nonetheless, Lyft has now raised a total of $1 billion, according to Crunchbase, compared with Uber which it says has raised $5.9 billion.
Related taxi/rideshare/carpooling coverage on Tnooz:
Baidu building up a taxi-app portfolio (April 2015)
Ola hails mammoth $400 million funding round (April 2015)
Ixigo joins in as taxis and ride-sharing take hold in India (April 2015)
BlaBlaCar consolidates ride-sharing market with Carpooling acquisition (April 2015)
Uber unphased as China rivals create monopolistic merger (Feb 2015)
NB Image by Shutterstock