Uber may have irked the Hub’s taxi drivers, but the black car ride-sharing service is piquing the interest of Boston’s Fidelity Investments. The locally-based financial services firm is said to be competing to lead Uber’s new round of funding at a $17 billion valuation.
Bloomberg reported the news on Tuesday, adding that terms of the San Francisco startup’s financing are subject to change. Last month, the site also reported that Uber was planning to raise less than $1 billion.
If Uber did complete the raise on a $17 billion valuation, it would mean the company is more valuable than public behemoths like car-rental company Hertz and electronics retailer Best Buy.
To put that in perspective, other top tech companies like Airbnb and Dropbox have raised money at $10 billion valuations in the previous months, according to Bloomberg.
For a local comparison, Boston home decor retailer Wayfair, which has an initial public offering in the works, raised $157 million in March at a $2 billion valuation.
In August 2013, Uber made noise when it raised $257 million from Google Ventures – the firm's biggest deal to date.
Founded in 2009, Uber has rolled out in 115 cities around the world. The company has raised a whopping $307.5 million from a slew of investors, including Benchmark, Menlo Ventures and TPG Capital, along with Google Ventures.
News of Uber’s next round comes close on the heels of the company’s partnership with AT&T, which was announced last week. As a result of the deal, new AT&T Android phones will all have the Uber app on them. In return, more drivers across the country will use AT&T's network.
Image via Uber
