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Official Site: li.me
Wikipedia: Lime (transportation company) Page Sections History Article Index |
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Lime (transportation company) page on 18 December 2020, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Neutron Holdings, Inc. doing business under the name Lime, formerly LimeBike, is an American transportation company based in San Francisco, USA. It runs electric scooters, electric bikes, normal pedal bikes and car sharing systems in various cities around the world. The system offers dockless vehicles which users find and unlock via a mobile app which knows the location of available vehicles via GPS.
LimeBike was founded in January 2017 by Brad Bao and Toby Sun, both of whom were executives of Fosun International's venture capital arm. It raised US$12 million in venture funding led by Andreessen Horowitz in March 2017. The company's first location, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, launched in June 2017 with 125 bicycles.
LimeBike expanded in July 2017 to the cities of Key Biscayne, Florida, South Bend, Indiana, and South Lake Tahoe, California. On July 27, 2017, LimeBike launched with 500 bicycles in Seattle, Washington, becoming the city's second bikeshare operator.
The company closed a Series B round of venture funding in October 2017, announcing that it was valued at $225 million. A $335 million funding round in 2018 led to a valuation of $1.1 billion for the company, making it a unicorn.
As of October 2017, Lime had 150,000 users.
In January 2018 Lime announced at CES 2018 that they would begin a trial of electric bikes, branded Lime-E, in San Francisco. The following month Lime-S electric scooters were announced. There was criticism in April 2018 when Lime left several hundred scooters on the streets of US cities without the permission of municipal authorities. Public criticism increased in June when it emerged that the scooters were programmed to play a recording of the message "Unlock me to ride me, or I'll call the police" repeatedly, at high volume, when their controls were touched.
In May 2018, the company announced plans to begin development of transit pods, small self-driving electric vehicles. Lime applied for car-sharing permits in Seattle in October 2018 and later launched a service in December 2018 with a fleet of Fiat 500 Lounge cars branded as "LimePod."
In August 2018, the company signed a deal with Uber to provide them with electric bikes for the expansion of their Uber Bikes service.
In September 2018, a 24 year old man in Dallas, Texas in United States died in a single vehicle Lime scooter accident. Responding police officer found a Lime electric scooter broken in half about 500 feet from where the victim was found unresponsive.
In October 2018 Lime announced the release of a new model e-scooter with larger wheels, built-in suspension and an aluminum frame to combat vandalism and extend vehicle life.
In May 2019, co-founder and chief executive officer Toby Sun stepped down reportedly to focus on R&D while Brad Bao, a Lime co-founder, took his place as CEO.
In September 2019, Lime was recognized as one of the LinkedIn's Top Startups for 2019. This was the first time Lime has been listed, and it was ranked at No. 12 amongst the list of 50 startups.
In October 2019, Lime announced it is predicting to lose about $300 million in 2019.
In January 2020, Lime laid off about 100 employees, or approximately 14 percent of its workforce, and ended its scooter rental service in a dozen markets, including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego and San Antonio. Further layoffs in April were blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic, with the CEO saying, "We had to pause operations in 99% of our markets worldwide to support cities’ efforts at social distancing."
Started in March 2020, due to reduced demand for electric scooters during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Lime had to suspend service in nearly two dozen countries.
In April 2020, Lime is reported to have acquired assets of electric skateboard startup Boosted.
Lime acquired the Jump e-bike and scooter business from Uber in May 2020, along with a $170 million funding round led by Uber, with Bain Capital Ventures and GV participating. The deal valued Lime at $510 million, down 79% from its $2.4 billion valuation in April 2019. At the same time, Brad Bao stepped down as CEO, replaced by Wayne Ting.
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
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| 15 June 2020 | Bank Robber Who Fled on Lime Electric Scooter Sentenced to 57 Months | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California |