Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says the company is on track for a 2019 IPO; source says the company has not started interviewing banks
- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC that the ride-hailing company is on track to go public in 2019. — The company is in a “good position” …
Context & Ripple Effects
Khosrowshahi's 2019 commitment is now a year old and holding: he set an 18-36 month IPO timeline at his first staff appearance in August 2017, then reaffirmed the date alongside the pending SoftBank investment that November. The new wrinkle is operational, not rhetorical — sources say Uber has not started interviewing banks, meaning the underwriter selection that anchors any listing timetable is still ahead of it.
The competitive clock matters too: Lyft moved first in August 2018 by hiring an adviser for its own IPO, targeting a spring 2019 listing ahead of Uber. A CEO publicly re-committing to 2019 while the banking process sits untouched reads as reassurance to investors and employees that the deadline survives the rival's head start.
First-order effects
- Uber now faces compressed sequencing: with no bank interviews underway, underwriter selection, S-1 drafting, and roadshow preparation all have to fit inside the remaining runway to a 2019 listing.
Second-order effects
- Lyft's earlier start forces a race dynamic — if Lyft lists first in early 2019, its pricing and reception become the market's read on ride-hailing before Uber's own filing, shaping the valuation Uber can command.
Third-order effects
- If both ride-hailing leaders reach public markets in the same window, the sector shifts from private capital sustaining unprofitable growth to quarterly public scrutiny of unit economics — the test SoftBank's stake was positioned to bridge toward liquidity.
The trend: Ride-hailing is converging on a 2019 public-listing window in which Uber and Lyft's staggered IPO preparations will sequence how the market prices the category.