Jaguar Land Rover invests $25m in Lyft, provides fleet of cars
UK automaker Jaguar Land Rover has invested $25m in ride-hailing firm Lyft for the purpose of advancing its autonomous and connected vehicle ventures, according to a joint statement by the companies. The funding came through InMotion, which is Jaguar Land Rover's mobility services unit. The automaker has also said it will provide Lyft with an unspecified number of vehicles as part of its investment. The ride-hailing company is now valued at $7.5bn after its latest funding round.
UK-automaker Jaguar Land Rover has invested $25 million in Lyft via its mobility services subsidiary InMotion to help it expand its ride-sharing business and develop technologies. This investment is the part of the recent $600 million funding round that valued Lyft at $7.5 billion. The company had not revealed how it had planned to utilize the inflow of funds.

The Jaguar Land Rover unit, InMotion, focuses on autonomous cars and other technologies. And, this association will result in InMotion leveraging Lyft’s platform to develop and test its mobility services, including autonomous vehicles. Lyft takes a different apporach than Uber when it comes to services of autonomous vehicles. Unlike the latter which is developing its own technology, Lyft partners with firms pursuing the development in this space. John Zimmer, Lyft president and co-founder, said,

We’re excited to join forces with Jaguar Land Rover and InMotion. Lyft envisions a future where shared mobility will transform cities and improve people’s lives. This partnership will help us achieve that ambitious goal.

Lyft had been attracting eyeballs of various companies, and is giving Uber a tough competition, which is already going through a tough phase. It had been fueling high amounts of capital in the autonomous technology, however, suffered a huge blow when Waymo accused the company of stealing its technology. The worth noting fact is that Lyft had collaborated with Waymo just after a month it raised its recent funding round. Also, it partnered with Singapore-based nuTonomy just a week before.

Sebastian Peck, InMotion’s managing director, in a statement, said,

We are excited to collaborate with a leading platform like Lyft not only on developing premium mobility solutions but also devising innovative solutions to the transport problems Jaguar Land Rover’s customers face.