Alphabet Inc is in discussions with Lyft Inc about a possible investment in the ride-hailing company, potentially deepening an existing partnership between the two firms.An injection of support from one of Silicon Valley's largest companies could be a boost to Lyft as the No. 2 ride provider battles rival Uber Technologies Inc for market share.
Launched in the US in 2012, lyft is a developer of ride-hailing mobile application as a transportation network company. Operating in 300 cities in the US, it reaches 18.7 million trips per month.
It was not immediately clear how large an investment Alphabet might make but it was reported that there was at least some discussion of a $1 billion deal.
In May, Alphabet's self-driving car unit Waymo and Lyft announced a partnership to work together on developing self-driving technology.
Recently, Lyft has been in an expansion mode, saying in August that it was available in 40 U.S. states covering 94 percent of the country's population.Lyft raised $600 million in fresh funding in April, mostly from large global investment funds. The round valued the company at $7.5 billion, up from $5.5 billion at Lyft's previous financing more than a year earlier.
Alphabet since 2013 has been an investor in Uber through its venture capital arm, known as GV. That relationship, though, became more complicated when Alphabet's Waymo sued Uber this year for alleged theft of trade secrets. The company received an investment of $ 500 million from General Motors in 2016, and recently has had an injection of $ 148 million from Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal.