Uber is a master of the $1 billion funding round. Since June 2014, the car-hailing service has raised six rounds of that much or more. Most recently, Uber was said to be seeking another $2.1 billion in financing that would value it at $62.5 billion—more than the market cap of General Motors.
Now, Uber’s biggest rival in the US is getting into the billion-dollar funding game, too. Per Bloomberg, Lyft is looking to raise as much as $1 billion in a round that could boost its valuation to around $4 billion. (We’ve reached out to Lyft for comment, and will update this post if they respond.)
The new fund-raising plans come as the competition against Uber—from Lyft and others—has ratcheted up. In September, Lyft allied with Didi Kuaidi, another ride-hailing giant and Uber’s stiffest competition in China. The deal promised to give Lyft a much-needed international presence and Didi Kuaidi a chance to mess with Uber on its home turf. Earlier this month, that partnership expanded to include two other Uber opponents: Ola, a big ride provider in India, and GrabTaxi, a company that operates in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Alone, Uber is still the biggest and the most formidable, but no one is conceding the space. In that way, there’s a certain symbolic significance to Lyft looking for $1 billion in funding. Before, Lyft’s rounds were in the hundreds of millions—far from negligible, but tough to get excited about when Uber was pulling in another $1 billion what felt like every other month. Now, Lyft is signaling that it has plans big enough to require that type of financing.