Lyft share price soars 20% in minutes on taxi app's stock market debut

• Ride-hailing company beats rival Uber in race to go public
• More than 30m shares to go on sale for estimated $72 each

The ride-hailing company Lyft made its stock market debut on Friday and soared over 20% in the first few minutes of trading as investors snapped up the first in a series of hotly anticipated tech sales.

Lyft is the first of a raft of tech "unicorns" - private companies valued at over $1bn - set to make their initial public offerings this year, the share sale valued Lyft at $22bn, close to 10 times the value of rental giant Avis Budget.