US ridesharing giant Lyft Inc on Thursday announced it has received a US$1 billion investment led by the venture arm of Google parent Alphabet Inc to help ramp up its challenge to market leader Uber Technologies Inc.
Lyft said the new funding gives it a valuation of US$11 billion as it steps up competition against Uber, which is reeling from a series of missteps and scandals that have forced out its founder and chief executive.
The new funding round was led by CapitalG, formerly known as Google Capital, which invests in emerging tech firms, a Lyft blog post said.
Lyft has been expanding in the US market as Uber’s image has taken a hit in recent months. It has also been expanding its partnerships, including with General Motors Co and the former Google Car unit now called Waymo.
“2017 has been an important year for the Lyft community. Earlier this month, we completed our 500 millionth ride and our service is now available to 95 percent of the US population — up from 54 percent at the beginning of the year,” the statement said. “While we’ve made progress toward our vision, we’re most excited about what lies ahead. The fact remains that less than 0.5 percent of miles traveled in the US happen on rideshare networks. This creates a huge opportunity to best serve our cities’ economic, environmental, and social futures.”
The new investment creates a potential conflict for Alphabet, which was one of the early investors in Uber.
Uber, which has a valuation of nearly US$70 billion, is widely expected to seal a deal for a major investment from Japan’s Softbank Group Inc, which could allow some stakeholders to cash out.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day