Japan's Rakuten leads $530m Series E round for Lyft

Rakuten said in a statement that it has contributed $300 million to the round, taking an 11.9% stake in the business. Lyft said that it intends to use the new capital to hire additional staff and also expand its services and its US footprint.

Set up in 2012, San Francisco-headquartered Lyft operates across 68 cities in the US. Its core business is a peer-to-peer service that matches passengers with nearby drivers.

The company also offers two additional services: Lyft Plus, which arranges rides in bigger vehicles for larger groups of passengers; and Lyft Line - available in San Francisco and Los Angeles - which arranges shared rides on regular routes that are priced for daily use.

The start-up is seen as the smaller US rival of app-based car-hailing service Uber - which was most recently valued at $40 billion when it raised $1.2 billion in December. Lyft has now raised about $862 million across seven rounds. Other investors include Alibaba Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Mayfield Fund, GSV Capital, and Founders Fund.

"By empowering human connection, the sharing economy is going to fundamentally transform the service industry and benefit society," said Hiroshi Mikitani, founder and CEO of Rakuten. "We believe businesses like Lyft that unlock the latent potential that exists in people and society hold the key to the future."

Rakuten - which also runs a $100 million corporate venture fund - is an active acquirer of, and investor in, VC-backed assets. Last month it bought instant messaging service Viber for $900 million, while in August last year it acquired e-commerce mobile app backed Slice for an undisclosed amount.

It is not the only Japanese internet giant to target the ride sharing and taxi-hailing app space. In January, SoftBank Group led a $600 million investment in Travice, operator and developer of China's Kuadi Dache. Three months later, its investment division SoftBank Internet and Media (SIMI) led a $210 million Series D round for India taxi-booking app Ola.

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