Uber’s latest funding round gives it a larger valuation than 80% of S&P 500

New York: Uber is raising more money and the new valuation will make it larger than stalwarts of the S&P 500 including Dow Chemical, BlackRock, and Netflix.

Bloomberg’s Eric Newcomer earlier reported that the car-booking start-up is looking to raise as much as $2.1 billion in a financing round that would give it a valuation of $62.5 billion. For comparison, here are some of the companies that have lower market caps.

Companies that are still bigger include Apple, Starbucks, Nike, and Facebook.

Uber is one of the most well-known and highest valued members of the “unicorn club,” the group of private companies with valuations higher than $1 billion. That club faced a big test last month when one of its most prominent members, the mobile payments company Square, went public. While other unicorns haven’t fared so well when IPOing, Square’s offering went rather smoothly despite a lowered valuation and pricing.

Still though, there is no shortage of commentators worried about the lofty valuations of unicorns and their ability to generate earnings sufficient to match expectations of their worth.

According to Newcomer’s reporting, Uber has increased actual US gross revenue about 200% this year and is profitable in more than 80 cities around the world, and the number of US trips completed this year has increased 250% compared with the same period last year. Bloomberg