If it weren’t for Uber, the road back for fallen pro cyclist Lance Armstrong would have been even steeper.
That’s the proclamation made by Armstrong, whose admission to doping in a 2013 appearance with Oprah stripped him of seven Tour de France titles and cemented a lifetime ban from the sport, to CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on the “Today” show Thursday.
Armstrong’s not driving, but he is investing.
‘It’s saved our family.’
In 2009, Armstrong said, he invested $100,000 in Chris Sacca’s venture capital firm, Lowercase Capital. Armstrong said the bulk of the investment was in the then-new ride-sharing concern, which now prepares for a long-anticipated IPO. Uber has added food delivery, bicycle sharing and more to its offerings.
Armstrong said of Sacca, “I didn’t even know that he did Uber. I thought he was buying up a bunch of Twitter
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shares from employees or former employees, [but] the biggest investment in [the] Lowercase fund one was Uber.”
Banks including Goldman Sachs
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Morgan Stanley
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have valued Uber at as much as $120 billion, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Rival Lyft, last valued at about $15 billion in a private-funding round, actually moved a step ahead of Uber when Lyft announced Thursday it had filed a registration with the SEC in preparation for its own IPO.
Watch the full interview with Armstrong:
Armstrong, 47, would not reveal how much his investment would be worth, but told Sorkin it’s a number that is “too good to be true.”
The cancer survivor and Sports Illustrated cover boy whose celebrity enriched him personally, but also attracted fundraising for the many causes he championed, dodged the most costly of the several fraud lawsuits he faced by agreeing in April to a $5 million settlement with former cycling team sponsor the U.S. Postal Service. The federal government could have sought up to $100 million in damages had the suit gone to trial.
Armstrong had previously paid over $20 million in damages and settlements across a series of lawsuits, according to the Guardian.
Related: Annoyed Lance Armstrong: Why doesn’t everyone hate A-Rod, too?
Source : MTV
