Timeline of Lyft

This is a timeline of Lyft, a car-hailing platform.

Big picture

Time period	Key developments at Lyft
2012–2014	Lyft launches in San Francisco, and expands to at least 60 different cities by 2014. A year after launch, it gives 30,000 rides a week. By August 2013, it hits a million completed rides.
2014–2016	Lyft gets Series E and Series F round investments (including from General Motors), increasing its total raised to $1 billion and its valuation to $2.5 billion.

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
2012	June	Company	Lyft launches in San Francisco by Logan Green and John Zimmer as a service of Zimride, a ridesharing company the two founded in 2007.[1]
2013	January	Funding	Lyft raises $15 million in Series B led by Founders Fund.[2]
2013	January 30	Expansion	Lyft expands to Los Angeles.[3]
2013	May	Funding	Lyft completes a US $60 million Series C venture financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz; the other investors were Founders Fund, Mayfield Fund, K9 Ventures, and Floodgate.[4][5]
2013	July	Partnerships	Lyft sells Zimride to Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, allowing Lyft to focus exclusively on the growth of Lyft.[6]
2013	October 3	Expansion	Lyft announces its expansion to Silicon Valley.[7]
2014	April	Funding	Lyft completes a $250 million Series D financing round led by Coatue, Alibaba, and Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total amount raised to $332.5 million.[2]
2014	April	Funding	Lyft announces it will temporarily stop taking 20% commissions from drivers, as it experiments with cutting user fares by 20%.[8][9]
2014	April 24	Expansion	Lyft announces it will expand in 24 new markets, bringing its total number of markets to 60. These markets include Ann Arbor, Mich.; Fairfield County & New Haven, Conn.; Fresno, Calif.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; Modesto, Calif.; Newark & North Jersey; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Bernardino, Calif.; and Tulsa, Okla.[10]
2014	July	Product	Lyft rewrites all its code from Objective C to Swift, which makes the code tighter and easier to maintain.[11]
2014	July 24	Expansion	Lyft launches in New York City.[12][13] The New York Supreme Court in Manhattan forces Lyft to delay its planned launch in Brooklyn and Queens in response to complaints filed by the attorney general's office.[14]
2014	August 4	Product	Lyft announces Lyft Line, a carpooling service that lets multiple people ride together when they share a common route.[15]
2014	August	Competition	Journalists confirm that Uber has been sending so-called brand ambassadors to order Lyft rides undercover and then persuade the drivers to defect to Uber.[16][17]
2014	August	Product	Lyft announces that it will reintroduce 20% commissions on rides, provide Lyft’s first revenue since April, when the company slashed prices and said it would temporarily suspend its cut of all fares.[9]
2014	November 4	Legal	Lyft accuses former COO Travis VanderZanden (who left Lyft for Uber) for breach of his confidentiality agreement and fiduciary duty.[18] This lawsuit is settled by June 2016.[19]
2015	March	Funding	Lyft raises a $530 million Series E investment led by Japanese online retailer Rakuten Inc.[2][20]
2015	March	Product	Lyft announces Lyft Carpool, which lets it go back to its Zimride roots, by allowing passengers to carpool outside of city limits.[21]
2015	April	Team	Lyft hires Rex Tibbens, former vice president of Amazon logistics, as its chief operating officer.[22]
2015	May	Funding	Lyft raises $150 million in second Series E led by a $100 million investment from Carl Icahn. This increases the total raised to over $1 billion and the valuation to $2.5 billion.[2][23][24]
2015	June 25	Partnerships	Lyft announces a partnership with Starbucks, which connects Lyft with Starbucks’s rewards program and creates perks for drivers: Lyft drivers automatically get Gold status in the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program, while Lyft passengers earn points in the rewards program with each ride.[25]
2015	September 16	Competition	Didi Kuaidi, the dominant Chinese player in China's ride-hailing market, announces a $100 million investment in Lyft, the second biggest player in the United States ride-hailing market after Uber. In addition, the companies announce a strategic partnership, where people can use the Lyft app to get rides using Didi Kuaidi in China, and vice versa.[26]
2015	September 30	Company	Lyft announces its second engineering hub in Seattle.[27]
2015	December	International	Lyft's alliance grows to include Didi Kuaidi (China), Ola Cabs (India), and GrabTaxi (South-East Asia) (all of which have Softbank as an investor). This is widely seen as an attempt by the companies to keep Uber at bay. All the other companies in the partnership are market leaders in their respective regions of focus.[28][29]
2016	January 4	Funding	Lyft announces a partnership with U.S. automaker General Motors, which invests $500 million as part of a Series F $1 Billion fundraising effort. The partnership is designed to help both companies accelerate in the ride-sharing market, as well as the autonomous car arena.[2][30][31]
2016	March	Partnerships	Lyft launches Express Drive, a car rental program through which Lyft drivers can rent a GM vehicle to drive on the platform.[32]
2016	March	Product	Lyft and General Motors announce partnership to test-drive electric taxis.[33]
2016	May 7–9	Local retreat	On May 9, Uber and Lyft cease operations in Austin, Texas.[34][35] This is in response to a city ordinance upheld by Austin voters on May 7 that would require drivers for Uber, Lyft, and other transportation network companies to get fingerprint checks, to have their vehicles labeled, and to not pick up and drop off in certain city lanes.[36][37]
2016	May 23	Product	Lyft announces that it will now allow users to schedule trips ahead of time.[38]
2016	June	Partnerships	Walmart decides to test grocery delivery with both Uber and Lyft.[39]
2016	June 27	Partnerships	Lyft announces that it has been working with Qatalyst Partners LP, in exploring its options for a future acquisition.[40] It has been unable to find an acquirer as of August 2016.[41]
2016	August 1	Local retreat, competition, mergers	Lyft's ally Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi), the dominant player in China's ridesharing market, agrees to buy Uber China, Uber's business in China.[42] [43] The Uber brand will be retained, but Didi would “integrate the managerial and technological experience and expertise of the two teams.” Uber, which has reportedly lost $2 billion trying to make inroads in China, would therefore be able to cut its losses and focus on the rest of the Asian market.[44] Commentators speculate on the effect this would have on Lyft, Ola Cabs, and GrabTaxi, that had entered into a technology and service alliance with Didi in December 2015.[45][46]

See also

• Timeline of Uber

References

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