(AP Photo/Paul Sakluma, File)Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick arrives at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.Car-hailing app Uber is looking to raise between $1.5 and $2 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at more than $50 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports.
A round of that size would make San Francisco-based Uber the highest-valued private startup of all time - only Facebook managed to break the $50 billion valuation barrier while still a private company.
What's more, the report indicates that the talks are still ongoing, and that valuation could go even higher, which would make Uber's growth curve even more astounding. In February of 2014, the company was said to be valued at $18 billion. Just this past December, the company was valued at $41 billion.
Now, in the scant six months since that round, Uber could have added another $10 billion or more to its valuation.
Uber already holds the record for most-funded startup: It's raised $5.9 billion over ten rounds of venture capital funding in the past six years, as Silicon Valley's elite trip over themselves to get in on Uber's explosive growth, fueled by the company's aggressive expansion strategy in 250 markets around the globe.
Those same investors seem nonplussed by the mismatch between the company's valuation and its financials. Uber' did about $400 million in revenue last year, which would make a $50 billion valuation worth around 120 times the cash it actually pulls in. For reference, Facebook's $50 billion valuation was based on $2 billion of revenue.
It's no wonder Uber had the pockets to make a rumored $3 billion bid for Nokia's Here Maps unit.