Lyft has its beginnings back in 2007 when Logan Green, John Zimmer, and Rajat Suri decided to focus on ride-sharing to cut down on the 80% of empty seats in vehicles on American highways. Initially tested on Cornell University’s campus, Zimride’s marketshare grew to 20% of the student body.  By 2012 the company had 29 employees and had facilitated over 26,000 carpools.

Later in 2012 the company launched the new service “Lyft” where users could pay for immediate ride-hailing. in 2013 Zimride and all of its assets, with the exception of Lyft, were sold to Enterprise Holdings. This allowed John Zimmer to focus exclusively on the hide-hailing service.