Uber Hailing Goldman Sachs Clients For Investments

Cab colossal Uber has retained Goldman Sachs in an attempt to raise money from Goldman’s wealthier customers, Fortune is reporting.

“Goldman’s global wealth management team was informed of the deal this morning,” Fortune reported on Monday (Dec. 1), “and began sending out packets of information to their clients. All we know right now is that the offered securities are structured as convertible debt, and could raise hundreds of millions of dollars to support Uber’s balance sheet and international expansion efforts. It is unclear what clients are being told about possible liquidity scenarios, given that they’ll be getting convertible notes for a company that is neither promising an IPO nor one that permits secondary trading of its stock. In the past, Goldman has managed similar fundraises for then-IPO candidates like Facebook.”

Uber has already raised about $1.5 billion from Benchmark, Fidelity Investments, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures, Google Ventures, TPG Capital, Summit Partners, Wellington Management, BlackRock and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “Goldman Sachs also is an existing investor,” the story added.

In other Uber news, the taxi tyrant is reportedly expanding its grocery delivery program experiment and has now dubbed it UberEssentials, along with a goal of delivering “everyday items” in ten or fewer minutes.

“Uber launched the experiment as Corner Store this summer and it seems it’s been successful enough to continue. UberEssentials will run from 9am to 9pm on weekdays and 9am to midnight on weekends. Currently, the service is iOS only but Uber says it’ll arrive on Android within days,” reported The Next Web. “The list of products available from UberEssentials ranges from snacks, cold and flu remedies and condoms to more seasonal items like wrapping paper and Christmas tree lights. It’s a well curated list to target the lazy, sick or forgetful.”