Lyft isn't growing nearly as fast as it hoped. According to Bloomberg, Lyft had planned to provide 7.4 million rides in July, but it only hit half that figure. Its failure to grow is also leading to major losses. In July, Lyft had expected to lose $14 million — it reportedly lost closer to $35 million. That miss extends throughout the first half of the year, with Lyft seeing fewer new customers, less revenue, and greater losses than it had initially projected. It reportedly lost $127 million during that period, on revenue of $46.7 million. The figures come from a leaked document Lyft is distributing as it looks to raise $500 million in new funding.

Marketing is an enormous expense for Lyft

Part of Lyft's losses come from the fact that it's advertising heavily in order to attract new customers and drivers. Bloomberg reports that it spent $96.1 million in the first half of 2015 alone, with money going toward billboards and customer discounts. It's also paying out driver bonuses in order to get more drivers on its system.

For its part, Lyft is highlighting different figures that paint a better picture. It claims to provide 40 percent of hailed rides in San Francisco and 45 percent in Austin; its market share in New York is supposed to have tripled in just the past four months. Additionally, Lyft says that it hit 7 million rides in October, which suggests that it could be catching up to its projected figures. Lyft didn't provide a comment to Bloomberg, but its co-founder recently said that Lyft is exceeding its own projections in "certain markets."

Putting growth before profits is common in the startup world, so Lyft's losses aren't strictly something to worry about yet — they are, to some extent, planned. But Lyft does need to grow in order to hit the point where it can become sustainable, and its slow growth figures suggest it's having a hard time doing that. Uber is already dominant in much of the US, where Lyft operates, so Lyft is essentially betting on the idea that there's room for a duopoly. Rather than try to expand abroad, it's partnering with other regional providers so that it can focus on expanding just inside the US.