Lyft, Inc. is the second-largest ride-hailing company in the United States. It launched in San Francisco in 2012 out of Zimride, the college carpooling service Logan Green and John Zimmer started in 2007. Pink car mustaches and front-seat fist bumps gave the young company a friendly image next to Uber's black-car roots.
Growth, IPO and losses
Lyft expanded city by city with venture funding, including a $500 million investment from General Motors in 2016, and reached all 50 states by 2017. It bought bikeshare operator Motivate in 2018 and went public on Nasdaq in March 2019 at $72 per share. Losses stayed heavy: $2.6 billion in 2019 and $1.58 billion in 2022. Without a delivery business, the 2020 pandemic hit Lyft harder than Uber.
The Risher reset
David Risher, an early Amazon executive, became CEO in April 2023. He cut about 26% of staff, matched Uber's prices, and launched a promise that drivers earn at least 70% of rider payments after external fees. Lyft posted its first annual GAAP profit, $22.8 million, in 2024.
Record 2025 and a global push
In FY2025 Lyft reported $6.3 billion of revenue, $18.5 billion of gross bookings, 946 million rides and more than $1.1 billion of free cash flow. It closed the roughly $198 million (€175 million) FREENOW acquisition in July 2025 and bought TBR Global Chauffeuring that October, giving it a European business.
Robotaxis on the Lyft app
Lyft now partners with autonomous-vehicle companies rather than building its own. Waymo robotaxis became bookable on Lyft in Nashville on September 9, 2026, with Lyft's Flexdrive unit running fleet operations, and a Baidu Apollo Go deal targets Europe. In Q2 2026 gross bookings rose 23% to $5.5 billion and active riders passed 30 million.
