• by Chuck Martin , March 1, 2019

Beating Uber to the punch, ride-hailing service Lyft has filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The S-1 filing shows that Lyft had 2018 revenue of $2.2 billion with a net loss of $911 million, up from a loss of $688 million in 2017.

Lyft, which operates in more than 300 markets, sees its work on future autonomous vehicles as one of its positive attributes as a company.

“We are investing in autonomous technology and employ a two-pronged strategy to bring autonomous vehicles to market,” states the filing.  “Our open platform provides market-leading developers of autonomous vehicle technology access to our network to enable their vehicles to fulfill rides on our platform.

“Simultaneously, we are building our own world-class autonomous vehicle system at our Level 5 Engineering Center, with the goal of ensuring access to affordable and reliable autonomous technology. “

Level 5 autonomy is the stage where a vehicle operates totally on its own, with no driver intervention.

The funds raised by the IPO are intended to be used for “general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures.”

Uber is expected to file for an IPO this year as well.