Google Tells Uber It’s Over, Invests $1 Billion On Rival Company Lyft

It seems Google parent company Alphabet has finally decided to burn bridges with Uber. The two companies used to be in good terms, with the search engine giant even investing in the ride-hailing firm when it was just getting off the ground. After years of a turbulent relationship, culminating in a lawsuit, it was just announced that Alphabet would be investing $1 billion on Lyft. This effectively ends all ties that it had with Uber.

Lyft made the announcement today via blog post, with the money coming from Alphabet’s VC arm, CapitalG. The ride-hailing rival to Uber also wrote that with the money coming in, this would put its valuation to $11 billion. As to what Lyft plans to do with the money, it notes how expanding its ridesharing network would be one of the bigger priorities.

“While we’ve made progress towards our vision, we’re most excited about what lies ahead. The fact remains that less than 0.5% of miles traveled in the U.S. happen on rideshare networks. This creates a huge opportunity to best serve our cities’ economic, environmental, and social futures,” the blog post reads.

This announcement is a culmination of weeks of rumors, with hearsays about Alphabet’s impending investments swirling around the financial industry since September, Gizmodo reports. However, the relationship between the two companies started as far back as May of this year.

At the time, Google’s self-driving division partnered with Lyft for its driverless car tests. This was also around the same time that Uber was ramping its efforts to be the first ride-hailing company to feature driverless cabs.

Now that Google and Uber are locked in a fierce legal battle that could effectively cripple Uber’s dreams of having a fleet of driverless vehicles, Lyft has a real chance of cornering the US market. This is even likelier with Google’s $1 billion buffing up the ridesharing firm’s capabilities.