Alibaba Goes In On Uber Competitor Lyft's $250 Million Round Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba invested in the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company, which plans to expand internationally.
By Catherine Clifford •
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Pink mustaches are looking to become a global trend.
Lyft, the ride-sharing, mobile-centric Uber competitor whose drivers outfit their vehicles with furry mustaches, announced it has raised $250 million in Series D funding.
Lyft's previous investors, including top-tier venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund and Mayfield, all reinvested in the new round. Of particular note, Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group participated in the Lyft raise.
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In a blog post announcing the round, Lyft said that it would use the money to not only expand further in the U.S., but to expand internationally.
Including this most recent $250 million investment, Lyft has raised $333 million since receiving its first seed round in June of 2009, according to the venture capital database CrunchBase.
Alibaba's investment in Lyft is not the only U.S. investment that the Chinese ecommerce brand has made of late. Two weeks ago, free mobile messaging service Tango announced that Alibaba was the lead investor on its $280 million raise. Mountain View, Calif.-based Tango is a centralized social networking app with 200 million members. Also, Alibaba invested $200 million into Michael Rubin's two-day shipping membership company ShopRunner this past fall.
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Alibaba has made a conscious effort to seek out investment opportunities in U.S.-based entrepreneurs innovating Internet commerce and emerging technologies. The Chinese-based company said toward the end of last year that it had established a U.S.-based investment organization.
"Alibaba is run by entrepreneurs, and we believe in supporting entrepreneurs with great vision and a strong sense of mission for their companies," said Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba and head of Alibaba's strategic investments, in a statement released in October.
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