Lyft is finally moving to Europe. The US ride company announced Wednesday that it was buying a European taxi app startup for free. The acquisition marks Lyft’s first major push outside of North America, indicating its intention to play head-on against Uber and players in Europe.
Free is not a small fish. The startup began as MyTaxi in 2009 and is based in Hamburg, Germany. It has been jointly owned by German car manufacturers BMW and Mercedes-Benz since 2019.
“Lyft Inc. has agreed to buy the European taxi-remaining app Freinow for around 175 million euros ($170 million), marking its first global expansion beyond the US and Canada,” reported Bloomberg.
The app operates in over 150 cities in nine countries, including Ireland, the UK, Germany and France, and offers users access to taxis, ride services, e-scooters, e-mopes and e-bikes.
Once the deal closes (expected in late 2025), Lyft and Free is reportedly offering a combined service of over 50 million users per year.
The acquisition comes just two years after Lyft cut 1,072 jobs (26% of the workforce) and just a month after the co-founder resigned.
Financially, free is a solid form. According to the company’s fact sheet, the company tested positive for EBITDA and attracted gross bookings of over 1 billion euros in 2024.
Lyft CEO David Risher said the move is not in a hurry. He told CNBC when he joined the company two years ago, “We were losing our share, so we were losing money. We weren’t doing that well for the riders and drivers.”
That has changed. “Now we’re picking you up about a minute faster, driver cancellations are under 5%, drivers are making billions of dollars on the platform, and our Canadian business doubled last year.”
He sees Europe as the next logical step. “We see the strong service levels and see the fact that we are doing very well internationally, within Canada.
Lyft enters a highly competitive field. Uber has been operating in Europe since 2012 and has gained a strong foothold, but has also faced pushbacks from regulators. In London, the company nearly banned safety issues twice before securing a new license in 2022.
Free offers Lyft off-the-shelf platforms, local expertise and scaffolding for major cities. This is a wise way to skip climbing buildings from scratch in markets where consumer behavior, local partnerships and transportation rules are vastly different.
If Lyft can bring the same improvements it has made to its new European operations in North America, this could be the beginning of a much larger international footprint.
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