In the old days, getting a ride with a stranger meant standing by the road and sticking your thumb out. Now you use a smartphone app.
Yes, we’re talking about the world’s biggest ride-sharing company. In a single decade, Uber has grown from an unlikely idea into a hundred-billion-dollar company that attracts investors, copycats, and passengers all over the world.
Uber took the world by storm when it introduced a new business structure. Uber is a taxi company, but it doesn’t own any vehicles or employ any drivers. It distributes a free Uber app that connects to servers that match up drivers with passengers looking for a ride.
After years of extraordinary growth, this innovative company set sail on Wall Street with a May 2019 IPO. Uber revenue was seriously affected by its inglorious, record-setting debut on the stock market, which stands for one of the most hyped financial events since Facebook’s debut in 2012.
Before we relive the IPO, let’s take a look at the milestones that led analysts to value the company at $100 billion.
Key Uber revenue statistics
- Uber has a current global market value of $72 billion.
- There are more than 75 million active Uber riders across the world.
- The average Uber driver earns $364 per month.
- Uber’s stock price fell by 11% in the 24 hours following its IPO – a Wall Street record.
- Lyft vs. Uber: Uber has more than 3 million active drivers, while Lyft has about 1.4 million.
- Almost half of Uber drivers have another job.
- Uber says it takes a 25% fee from each fare.
- Uber lost $5.24 billion in the last three months, its largest-ever quarterly loss.
Uber Funding Rounds
Uber changed the way people take transport by making it more convenient, fun, and of course – cheap. So, what is Uber anyway, and when was Uber founded?
While the idea of Uber was born in Paris in 2008, the company took its first steps in San Francisco where Uber headquarters are still located. In 2009 Uber tested its service in New York using only three cars and a preliminary version of the Uber application. The official launch took place in San Francisco in May 2010. The ease and simplicity of ordering a vehicle using a smartphone app led to a quick rise in popularity. In October of 2010, the Uber company received its first financial boost:
1. First Round Capital provided Uber’s first round of investment capital: $1.25 million.
(Investopedia)
The Uber business model began to take shape about the time the company gained its first round of funding in October 2010. That same month, the company received cease-and-desist order from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which insisted that UberCab change its name. The startup reacted swiftly, dropping “Cab” from its name and purchasing the uber.com domain from Universal Music Group.
The company grew quickly, as Uber first year revenue statistics show. In 2011 an injection of $11 million from Benchmark Capital allowed Uber to expand to Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and Paris.
In December 2011 the Uber company raised more than $37 million in Series B funding from Jeff Bezos and Goldman Sachs. This was when the company decided to launch UberX, which promised lower fares using hybrid vehicles. In 2016, Uber received $3.5 billion of funding from Saudi Arabia’s Wealth Fund. With that kind of money in the bank, there was nowhere to go but up.
Uber was not public at that point, and it wasn’t required to announce annual earnings or disclose financial statements. The company kept its financial cards close to its chest until 2017, when it opened up its financial reports for the first time. Bloomberg was the first release an analysis of Uber revenue growth and annual losses. Check the following:
