Company valuation is always a bit of a game of smoke and mirrors. Even still, for a limo-service company making $125 million in annual revenue to be valued at $3.5 billion is enough to raise some eyebrows.
Kara Swisher at tech blog All Things D dug up some Delaware regulatory filings from earlier this month which disclose various stock offerings that, when crunched together, come up with the eye-popping valuation.
Uber is a San Francisco-based limo company which allows members to order and pay for cars entirely on their mobile phones. Founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick, venture-backed Uber offers service in 35 cities across the world.
According to the regulatory filing, private-equity powerhouse TPG invested just shy of $90 million in Uber's latest round of funding while technology venture capital firm Benchmark bought more than 100,000 shares. Another $258 million investment came from Google Ventures, marking the largest deal Google's venture capital arm has ever made, according to TechCrunch.
We knew Google was excited about driverless cars, but it seems that if Google Ventures is willing to sink almost all of its $300 million annual funding into Uber, the tech-giant is into cars with drivers, too.
Related: The Art and Science of Company Valuations (Infographic)
