Lyft Inc. is starting an investor roadshow Monday in an effort to persuade investors to buy into its initial public offering.

That’s according to CNBC, which reported today that Lyft will meet with investors across the United States before pricing the IPO and listing on the Nasdaq at the end of the month.

Separately, Bloomberg, quoting people familiar with the matter, reported that Lyft could spell out the price range and number of shares it plans to market in an updated regulatory filing prior to the roadshow starting, which means the filing could also come Monday as well.

An investor roadshow is a traveling sales pitch that involves a company attempting to persuade institutional investors to buy into a public offering. In addition to explaining the offering, roadshows also gauge the level of market interest in the float, allowing Lyft to narrow the target price range.

Lyft released a prospectus for its IPO on March 1, listing the value of the shares to be sold as $100 million, a figure normally used by companies as a placeholder until they settle on a sale target. A reported figure for the float has Lyft seeking to raise as much as $2 billion on a $20 billion to $25 billion valuation.

The size of the float is notable as its the largest tech IPO since Snap Inc. went public in March 2017. But the mantle will not be held for long with rival Uber Technologies Inc. lining up behind Lyft to go public in April.

Lyft will be hoping to convince investors that its shares offer something different to Uber, even though both companies are in substantially the same business, have never been profitable and bleed money.

Lyft’s ride-hailing network has expanded to more than 300 markets in the United States and Canada. Its market share of the market said to be sitting at 39 percent in the markets in which it operates and 28.4 percent of the total U.S. market as of October.

Simple may be the key. CNBC, quoting a source, said Lyft “will be pitching itself as a more focused bet on ride-hailing to differentiate itself from Uber, which has diversified to areas such as food delivery and freight hauling and expanded around the world.”

Photo: Pkg203/Wikimedia Commons