Lyft Hires Investment Bank Qatalyst Partners

Ride-hailing service Lyft Inc. has hired investment bank Qatalyst Partners LP, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. It isn’t clear if the company wants help attracting more funding or plans to sell itself.

The Journal describes Qatalyst as one of Silicon Valley’s most active dealmakers. The firm most recently advising LinkedIn on its sale to Microsoft Corp. for $26 billion.

The newspaper speculates that San Francisco-based Lyft may be contemplating a sale to a carmaker such as General Motors Co. In January GM spent $500 million to buy 10% of Lyft. The companies have since announced they will partner on driverless cars.

Ride-hailing companies have attracted attention from other carmakers and would-be vehicle sellers this year too. In May Apple has invested $1 billion China’s Didi Chuxing, Toyota acquired a stake in Uber Technologies and Volkswagen invested $300 million in Israel-based Gett.

The Journal notes that Lyft has raised $2 billion in funding, only one-sixth as much as rival Uber has collected. The company has allied with Didi Chuxing and two other Asian ride-hailing services to bolster their ability to compete with Uber.