HOW EY IS HELPING LYFT RAISE ITS POST IPO GAME
Lyft raised more than two billion dollars in its 2019 IPO . Timing these events is often a hit or miss affair . Lyft nailed it with huge success . But keeping up that growth momentum and spending the money wisely while steering a route through the new regulatory constraints going public took serious teamwork .
And if that wasn ’ t enough , Lyft and EY had to exploit the benefits of a successful funding round just as the global pandemic took hold . designing their internal controls , redesigning the chart of accounts to scale with their targeted growth , and supporting the company ’ s financial transformation .
‘ Sanjay is spot on ,’ says Greenberger . EY brings a ton of expertise to support and augment our team and make sure we are building that proper foundation for long term success .’
According to Khunti , with so many separate business lines and units being developed under the Lyft banner – from rideshare to scooter hire to product delivery to name just three – EY needed to take a holistic approach .
‘ The IPO was a super exciting time for us ,’ says Greenberger . ‘ It necessitated a level of maturity and growth we needed to properly scale business operations .’
He says this is where Lyft ’ s relationship with EY became so critical .
Khunti agrees . ‘ Absolutely . Lyft being in hyper-growth mode … but then having to face the requirements of being a public company meant it found itself in an interesting position . Working with EY at the Speed of Lyft , as we call it , meant they had a successful IPO and built a strong partnership .’
‘ Operating in the public domain with a host of new regulations , laws and expectations from investors was just the tip of the iceberg .’
‘ EY helped them through setting up their internal audit and SOX functions ,
‘ One major step was to implement Oracle Financial Accounting Hub ( FAH )’, he says . This gave Lyft a more scalable accounting system which was auditable , traceable and provides a complete and accurate picture of their financials and the data they need to make the right business decisions .
‘ That was really the first step in getting this transformation journey started and it ’ s providing successful outcomes for our ongoing work together ,’ says Khunti .
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