Shared electric bike and scooter companies have been patchy investments: Bird Global, Bluegogo and oBike are among those that pedalled their way straight to bankruptcy. But one survivor, Uber-backed Lime, is now heading to Wall Street through a $2bn initial public offering in the US. The difference is that Lime has gathered enough speed to keep itself upright.
Lime has achieved one thing many start-ups didn’t: enough bikes to make its proposition attractive. Like ride-hailing apps or delivery services, bike sharing depends on density. Users need to know they can find a vehicle when and where they want it. Demand therefore follows supply. Last year, Lime’s fleet rose almost a fifth and revenue per bike rose 10 per cent.
A tie-up with Uber helped, by putting Lime in front of millions of users, helping it gain utilisation early. It also chose its battlegrounds carefully. In London, TfL’s Santander bikes are docked and centralised, while Lime introduced the city’s first dockless e-bikes.