Investing.com - Uber (NYSE:UBER) fell on its stock market debut, exacerbating concerns about other unicorn IPOs after the debacle of Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT).
Uber shares fell 6.5% shortly after the beginning of trading, what’s called breaking the IPO on Wall Street.
Uber played it cautious when it priced its IPO at $45 per share after the bell yesterday, the low end of its expected range, despite an oversubscribed offering.
The company raised $8.1 billion and is valued at more than $80 billion, but underwriter nerves were evident.
Lyft fell again after there were indications that Uber’s shares would trade lower. The stock fell 6.2%.
Led by Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, a team of Uber officials were on the NYSE trading floor to mark the start of the day\'s trading. Co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, who resigned in 2017 under pressure from investors, was also on seen on the trading floor.
The company\'s road to IPO was marred by several hurdles including increased regulations in several countries and fights with its drivers over wages.
Uber has said that it has the potential to grow not just in the cab hailing business, but also as a \"superapp\" to provide a variety of logistic services, such as grocery and food delivery, organizing freight transportation, and even financial services, much like Grab, its Southeast Asian counterpart.
As a private company, Uber has raised more than $15 billion from investors to fuel its growth and expansion into food delivery and freight hauling, with little regard for turning a profit. Uber reported a loss of $3.03 billion in 2018 from operations.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.