A Saudi prince has invested $105 million into Lyft

Lyft is now partly owned by Saudi prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. The prince led a recent $247.7 million round for a roughly 5 percent stake in the ridesharing service – putting up $105 million in his own funding as part of the deal for 2.3 percent of the pie. Al-Waleed is a global investor and business magnate some have dubbed the “Arabian Warren Buffet” for his vast business dealings. He owns and runs Kingdom Holding Company, which has a market cap of $18 billion and invests in various business sectors including hotels, media, banking, technology and real estate. He owns a substantial amount in Citigroup and News Corp and has made investments in many technology conglomerates before this deal, including in our parent company AOL. The prince’s firm also holds a stake in Apple, Twitter and Motorola. Lyft filed to raise as much as $1 billion earlier this month, authorizing close to 37 million shares at a price of around $26.79. The new investment gives Lyft a new valuation of $4.9 billion. That’s a drop compared to Uber’s new $62.5 billion cap, but could put the younger, fuzzier Lyft ahead of its rival when comparing timelines. Remember Uber had a $3.5 billion valuation around the same time as Lyft did in its own growth cycle.