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NEW YORK — Newly public ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft have tumbled more than 25% since their initial public offerings, but Light Street’s Glen Kacher still believes there’s a path for profitability for them.
“The end market is huge,” Kacher, chief investment officer and founder of Light Street Capital, said at the Delivering Alpha conference presented by CNBC and Institutional Investor.
Kacher said Uber and Lyft are both raising prices rapidly in the U.S. and they are also benefiting from rise in the food delivering business. Kacher, who manages $2 billion in global technology assets, said he’s a shareholder in both companies.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for those two ride-sharing companies, however. Uber went public in May, and reported a $1.8 billion loss ahead of its public debut. It revealed a $5.2 billion loss in the second quarter. Uber’s ride-hailing rival Lyft, posted a 2018 loss of $900 million ahead of its March IPO. Both stocks are down more than 25% since their IPO date.
“Investors and maybe the financial press are quite negative” on both companies, Kacher said.
Scott Kupor, Andreessen Horowitz’s managing partner, is less bullish on them as their cash-consuming business is less likely to bode well in a late-cycle environment.
Kupor said he sees big opportunities in enterprise software companies.
“I think the market size for those [software] companies is just materially bigger than we had expected,” Kupor said. He highlighted cloud-based software company Salesforce whose stock has gone up 12% this year.
