Alibaba, Third Point, Coatue, Others Invest $250 Million In Lyft

Lyft, the smartphone app for sharing rides, raised $250 million from a group that includes the Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba Group. The funding would help the San Francisco-based ride-sharing service provider to compete with rival Uber. Massive series D funding Lyft is part of the increasingly popular ride-share industry, functioning effectively as a sort of dispatch network for regular drivers use their own cars to pick up passengers. Its main rival is Uber, which investors like TPG have already valued at $3.5 billion. Lyft said Wednesday that it had raised $250 million in a massive Series D funding round. The…