Uber posts $708 million loss, finance head leaves - WSJ

(Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc's [UBER.UL] head of finance is leaving as the ride-hailing company reported continued big losses for the first quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The ride-hailing company's first-quarter revenue was $3.4 billion, up 18 percent from the fourth quarter, the newspaper reported. (http://on.wsj.com/2rcyDHM)

Uber's first-quarter loss, excluding employee stock compensation and other items, was $708 million, narrower than the $991 million reported three months earlier, the Journal said.

Uber's head of finance, Gautam Gupta, is leaving the company in July to join another startup in San Francisco, adding to an exodus of top officials, the report said.

As a private company, Uber does not report its financial results publicly but at times has confirmed figures reported in the media.

Uber was not immediately available to comment.

The ride-hailing company is in the lookout for a chief operating officer to help change the Silicon Valley firm's now-notorious "bro" culture and with the latest exit sets the stage for a second major executive search.

The company on Tuesday fired the technology whiz it had hired to lead its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, after he failed to comply with a court order to hand over documents at the centre of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc's Waymo unit. [nL3N1IW3CC]

(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler and Lisa Shumaker)