Uber aims for valuation of up to $91 billion in IPO

Uber expects to be worth as much as $91 billion when it starts selling shares next month, making its initial public offering one of the largest in the history of the technology industry.

With its amended prospectus, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Uber is kicking off the last stage of the San Francisco ride-hailing company’s journey to list on the public stock markets. Its offering is expected to mint a new generation of Bay Area millionaires.

Uber set a price range of $44 to $50 a share, putting its valuation at $80 billion to $91 billion, accounting for stock options and restricted stock. That number could change depending on investor appetite for the company’s shares over the next two weeks.

At that valuation, Uber would dwarf its rival Lyft, which went public last month at a valuation of more than $24 billion — but it would place the company behind Facebook, which went public in 2012 with a market capitalization of $104 billion, and the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba, which was valued at $168 billion in its 2014 offering.

Uber said that it plans to sell 180 million shares in the offering, which could raise up to $9 billion.

Uber was last appraised at $76 billion in a private fundraising in August. The pricing will not be finalized until the day before it lists its shares.

Uber’s offering is a milestone for “unicorn” startups, young companies that were privately valued at $1 billion or more. While many of these businesses grew quickly, riding a wave of technology like smartphones, few have demonstrated they can make money. Uber is deeply unprofitable, as is Lyft.

Such losses have caused jitters on Wall Street: Lyft’s shares now trade below their offering price, for instance. That probably prompted Uber to take a more...