Lyft just raised $1 billion led by Alphabet’s investment fund

The Uber rival grabbed the fish bail of cash from Alphabet’s CapitalG investment fund, reports Reuters. CapitalG has previously backed tech companies including Airbnb and Stripe. The financing will give Lyft the cash needed to help grow its presence and take on archrival Uber. Lyft and Alphabet already have an existing relationship through a partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving car unit, which it struck in May. There have been rumors for a while now that Lyft is in preparations for its IPO, but now that the company just got another billion dollars, plans for the IPO could be delayed, Reuters speculates. “We will go public when it’s right for us,” a Lyft spokeswoman said.