Lyft is valued at $7.5 billion after raising a $500 million round

Lyft is coming up on closing a $500 million round of funding, bringing its post-money valuation to $7.5 billion. The company may raise up to $100 million more before the round is closed, sources familiar told Recode.

To date, the ride-hail company had raised a little over $2 billion at a $5.5 billion valuation.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the round.

This comes just as things are quieting down for Uber, which has seen a slew of public scandals that began with a former employee’s allegations of sexual harassment and sexism. In spite of having nearly identical business models, Lyft has long positioned itself as the friendlier ride-hail service for both its riders and drivers.

That branding has begun to pay off. Earlier this year, Lyft expanded into 100 additional cities in the U.S., bringing the number of cities the Andreessen Horowitz-backed company is in up to 300.

Lyft also saw the benefit of its branding during the #deleteUber campaign, a social media crusade to punish Uber for supposedly attempting to profit off the backs of taxi drivers protesting President Donald Trump’s travel ban. As a result, Lyft rose to the top of the app store, past Uber for the first time. That’s in spite of Lyft operating alongside Uber at John F. Kennedy airport where the protest was staged.

A recent report in The Information revealed that the ride-hail company was on track to turn a profit by 2018, but as we pointed out, the company’s bullish expansion plans would cause a corresponding increase in spending on things like incentives and subsidies.

However, as of January, the company dissolved its international cross-booking relationship with Didi and Grab. Enabling users to hail a Lyft using the Didi app in China was a costly endeavor that required both companies to set up separate teams to work on both developing the feature technologically but also handling things like changing the currency for each transaction. Didi also offered translators for its users traveling in the U.S.

While the companies previously touted their relationship — or what many called the anti-Uber alliance — dissolving the platform will alleviate spending associated with it.

This funding will become increasingly important as Lyft navigates the self-driving space with its partner and investor General Motors. In a blog post in September, Lyft president John Zimmer said he expected the first of the semi-autonomous vehicles to be available through Lyft as early as this year and that most of the vehicles on the platform will be self-driving in five years.

Update: Story was updated to include the company may raise up to $100 million more in this round.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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