Lyft gets a $1bn lift from Google's parent Alphabet

Google's parent company Alphabet has just dropped $1bn (£0.76bn) on ride-sharing company Lyft. The investment comes from one of Alphabet's investment firms- CapitalG.

This move by Alphabet has lifted Lyft's valuation from $7.5bn (£5.7bn) to $11bn (£8.3bn) reports CNET. In spite of being Uber's biggest competitor and being available in over 220 cities in the US, Lyft is still considered to be a small player in the market. Uber is valued at nearly $70bn (£53.4bn), in comparison.

David Lawee from CapitalG will also be joining Lyft's board.

Uber, while still the larger company, has been caught up in a number of controversies starting from being banned in cities across the world to facing criminal investigations from US Justice Department.

The company has been accused of stealing trade secrets from Waymo. It also shut down its car leasing business in the US and hired a new CEO this year. And, all these things have made the market a bit easier for Lyft to thrive.

A statement regarding the latest investment mentioned that the company has seen a steady growth in 2017 with over 95% of the US population now having access to their services. They started the year with 54% coverage, said the company.

The company said that less than 1% of the distance covered by Americans on road happens through ride-sharing networks, so that means the industry still has space to grow.

"Ridesharing is still in its early days and we look forward to seeing Lyft continue its impressive growth," said Lawee in a statement.

Lyft, apart from getting Alphabet's investment, has already partnered with Google's Waymo on self-driving tech. However, it is not clear if this round of investments has anything to do with the development of self-driving cars.

The company has made some major breakthroughs with self driving cars as well. They were reported to be offering rides to customers in the San Francisco Bay area in autonomous cars already.