As of last October, a whopping 83% of IPOs in 2018 were filed by unprofitable companies. Now, in 2019, Lyft is keeping the trend alive.
Ride-hailing giant Lyft finally filed to go public on the Nasdaq on Friday — under the stock ticker “LYFT” — to raise as much as $100m in its public offering.
But they still can’t stop the bleeding
While Uber has been on its apology tour the last few years, Lyft’s been busy gaining market share against its rival — with its share of the US ride hailing market up from 22% at the end of 2016 to 39% in December 2018.
But, like Uber (which lost $1.8B last year), Lyft is still wildly unprofitable with a net loss of $911m in 2018, up from $688m a year earlier.
The running of the unicorns
After investors have waited for years for startups with billion-dollar valuations to make it to Wall Street, Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest and Postmates are all expected to file this year.
For Lyft, there could be several advantages to beating Uber to the public market. But front row tickets to Lyft’s debut could also give the giants on Lyft’s heels a crystal ball view into how they will be received by investors.
