Lyft co-founder on Toyota deal, bitcoin and path to profitability

CNBC's Deirdre Bosa spoke with Lyft president and co-founder John Zimmer about the decision to sell the company's self-driving car division to Toyota for $550M, achieving profitability and his outlook for the company. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi

Lyft will sell its self-driving car unit to Woven Planet, a subsidiary of Toyota, for $550 million in cash, the companies announced Monday.

Shares of Lyft rose more than 2% after hours.

As part of the deal, Lyft and Woven Planet will work together on enhancing automated driving technology safety, according to a release.

“Not only will this transaction allow Lyft to focus on advancing our leading Autonomous platform and transportation network, this partnership will help pull in our profitability timeline,” Lyft Co-Founder and President John Zimmer said in a statement.

The company expects the deal will remove $100 million of annualized non-GAAP operating expenses on a net basis, according to the release. Because of that, Zimmer added that if the deal closes when expected in the third quarter and recovery from the pandemic continues, Lyft expects to become profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis in Q3.

The announcement comes just a few months after Lyft rival Uber sold its own self-driving unit to start-up Aurora, backed by firms including Hyundai and Amazon. The deal valued the unit around $4 billion and included a $400 million investment by Uber into Aurora.

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