As Jaguar Land Rover jockeys with other major carmakers toward an industry-leading position in autonomous driving technology, the company has decided to ally itself with Lyft, a ride-hailing company. Jaguar Land Rover invested $25 million in the company via InMotion, a venture capital fund backed by the British brand.

Jaguar Land Rover’s choice comes about as a result of Lyft’s interest in developing self-driving technology via broad-spectrum collaboration; the American company is pushing the autonomous-car envelope hard, and Jaguar Land Rover is interested in both the informational clearing house that will result from Lyft’s specific R&D, and its partnership with a solid contender for a self-driving moneymaking powerhouse.

For its part, Lyft gets association with a carmaker poised to emerge as a leader in the market while it is still blossoming, as well as a herd of Jaguar and Land Rover cars to play with; it also gets another association with an industry giant as it positions itself as the socially-conscious alternative to Uber.

Lyft isn’t confining itself to a single automaker, either. The company has already forged deals with GM, as well as smaller autonomous-vehicle startups, networking in a huge way. The deal with Jaguar is another step on the path.

Lyft’s vision sees a huge, interconnected network of ride-hailing vehicles. The company is only four years old, but is already poised to become, like Uber, a major competitor to the taxicab industry; more importantly, the upstart company is giving Uber a run for its money.

An element of the company’s ethos—part corporate marketing, part organic response and grassroots reaction from users—entwines a notion of a community-based collaborative and a venue for social engagement within its functional purpose, making Lyft a burgeoning monster which, similar to Facebook, profoundly merges emotion and dollar sign, personal affinity with huge profits. Uber is perceived as more business-oriented.

If Uber may be viewed as akin to IBM, Lyft might be aligned with Apple. They encourage tipping, their app is considered more user-friendly and versatile, and they favor a personal relationship between driver and passenger, over the more formally rigid relationship fostered by Uber.