on February 21, 2019
Santosh Rao, the head of research at the merchant bank Manhattan Venture Partners told Business Insider, “Lyft has the clear early-mover advantage, and they will definitely get the benefit of the doubt. No one knows how to value these companies. Is it a software company? Is it a car company? Is it a service?”
Business Insider has also reported, “Rao, who specializes in late-stage, pre-IPO company research, says the most accurate comparison is to platform companies, such as Etsy or Alibaba. Based on these multiples, Rao’s firm estimates a fair value of Lyft to be $19 billion to $20 billion.”
on January 11, 2019
The reason VCs typically try to avoid doing competitive deals is that it creates perceived (if not actual) confidentiality issues, companies have to worry about how much info to share with investors who are also close with their biggest competitor, and it just simply looks bad.
“It’s very unusual to allow the same parties to invest and get information rights of sworn mortal enemies,” Max Wolff, chief economist at Manhattan Venture Partners, told Reuters in 2016 when some of these investor conflicts began to emerge.
on January 3, 2019
on December 26, 2018
A major test will come early next year if Lyft and Uber go public. Both companies have made preliminary, confidential filings for IPOs. Manhattan Venture Partners, an IPO research firm, assigns a “fair market value” of $19 billion to Lyft and pegs Uber’s value at $52 billion, partly based on its 17.5% equity stake in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Chuxing. Based on their most recent private-market fund raising, Lyft was valued at $15.1 billion, and Uber, at $76 billion.
on December 19, 2018
“Uber thought they’ll just kind of grow their business and these guys will go away,” says Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners LLC. Now, “Lyft is in a strong competitive position.”
on December 17, 2018
Morehouse man and former Wall Street executive, Rashaun Williams identified a way to not only shift the Baller Mindset to a Mogul Mindset with a core program and visionary knack for investment.
on December 13, 2018
Santosh Rao, an analyst at Manhattan Venture Partners, has called this the “free rider effect.”
“The company was able to focus more time and resources on marketing its specific brand whilst Uber had to bear the responsibility of building consumer awareness around ride-hailing/sharing and establishing a new service category,” he said in a note to clients this week.
“Lyft has also benefited from the aggressiveness Uber displayed in pushing for a legal framework for ridesharing applications. This meant lower risk levels for Lyft while entering a new city that already had Uber.”
on December 12, 2018
Uber has a history of maneuvering to one-up Lyft so it could appear to be a step ahead of its business rival. In 2014, as Lyft was preparing to launch its carpooling service, Uber rushed to publicly announce its own carpool, even though it did not have the service ready, according to people familiar with the matter.
Uber must be thinking it “did all the heavy lifting, took all the risks,” said Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, a Lyft investor. “They can’t let Lyft take the credit and define the expectations of investors.”
on December 6, 2018
“Lyft has the clear early-mover advantage, and they will definitely get the benefit of the doubt,” Santosh Rao, head of research at the merchant bank Manhattan Venture Partners, told Business Insider. “No one knows how to value these companies. Is it a software company? Is it a car company? Is it a service?”
on November 27, 2018
While recent volatility in the stock market illustrates some investor uncertainty in public companies, investors in private companies continue to push big chips into fast growing businesses that are becoming household names. Recently, I had an opportunity to interview Rashaun Williams, a Los Angeles-based venture capitalist and General Partner at the MVP All-Star Fund.
Venture Bytes is a monthly insight report highlighting topical ideas, current trends and emerging opportunities in the global technology landscape