Lyft Debuts in the Market and Sees Modest Gains

Shares of ride hailing company Lyft made their trading debut on Friday and closed up 8.7% at $78.29 by the end of the day.

This was a fairly modest IPO for a huge tech company that many anticipated for.

Over 70 million shares had been traded by the time the market closed and the company ended its first of day of trading with a market valuation of $22.2 billion.

Shares saw gains as high as 23% during the day

“This is a lightning start for Lyft’s stock as investors are salivating [over] owning a piece of the $1 trillion ride sharing market,” Wedbush managing director Dan Ives said to CNBC. “The robust start to trading is also a clear positive for other tech names that are watching Lyft to gauge investor demand and Street reaction on this transformational consumer tech name.”

“We’re ready to be held accountable. We’re excited,” co-founder and President John Zimmer told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box” on Friday.

“In our case, I think what we’ve seen in talking to investors [is] that more people are maybe surprised to see the numbers that we’re putting out and I think this is a great part of the process. For us this wasn’t the goal — this is a milestone along the way — but we feel like it helps us with additional access to capital.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in LYFT Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT) and have not been compensated for this article.