Uber IPO

Image: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Finally, after years of IPO chatter and expanding into food delivery, bikes, and self-driving cars, Uber has filed to go public. 

Uber was created in San Francisco back in 2009 as a vehicle-for-hire app and became the quintessential “gig economy” company with an independently contracted workforce providing rides. After Thursday’s filing, the company is expected to start publicly trading in May.

Uber’s smaller competitor Lyft went public as the first ride-hailing app with a $24 billion valuation last month. That created chatter that Uber would hit a nearly record-breaking $100 billion valuation, but it didn’t disclose what valuation it was seeking in its filing. 

Uber has been open with its financials for over the past year. With most of its finances voluntarily divulged, we got a sense of how unprofitable ride-sharing is — well before Lyft’s official IPO filing confirmed huge annual losses. Uber has slowed the bleeding, but even with an increased $11.3 billion in revenue last year, it lost $1.8 billion. 

It doesn’t help that Lyft’s stock has been dropping in the weeks since its arrival on the NASDAQ, where shares sold for $72 at the IPO. Now it’s down to $62.

To reach its IPO-filing moment, Uber has been through many transformations. The most notable change was when founder Travis Kalanick was kicked out and former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi arrived in August 2017. Last year the Uber logo and brand changed under the new CEO.

Only two years ago, Uber’s workplace culture was known as aggressive, inappropriate, and rife with sexism. Khosrowshahi has worked to turn around that image while battling other major issues such as driver pay and benefits, the first autonomous vehicle fatality, and pushback from the traditional cab industry in cities around the world. 

The company brought on its first chief financial officer in three years just last August in a move that showed it was serious about going public.

And here we are.