Uber Technologies Inc said its head of finance is leaving, and the privately held ride-hailing company also said that its first-quarter loss narrowed substantially from the prior quarter, putting it on a path toward profitability.

Head of finance Gautam Gupta is leaving in July to join another startup in San Francisco, the company said, making Gupta the latest high-profile executive to leave Uber.

Uber, which has been rocked by several high-level executive departures in the past few months as it grapples with a series of controversies, has been looking for a chief operating officer to help change its now-notorious "bro" culture.

Gupta's exit sets the stage for a second major executive search, now for a chief financial officer who has public company experience.

About a dozen top executives have left Uber since February.

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 center of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Waymo unit.

Uber on Wednesday said its net loss in the first quarter, excluding employee stock compensation and other items, narrowed to US$708 million, from US$991 million in the fourth quarter.

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

Uber said its first-quarter revenue rose 18 per cent to US$3.4 billion from the fourth quarter.

"The narrowing of our losses in the first quarter puts us on a good trajectory towards profitability," an Uber spokesperson said in an email.