Lime becomes a Unicorn

Last Friday’s transport from Edgecliff to Rose Bay! 

Founded in 2017 by Adam Zhang, Brad Bao, Charlie Gao, and Toby Sun Lime solves the first and last-mile transportation problem, in a sustainable way, using electric bikes powered by lithium batteries.. 

They can be seen all around the Eastern Suburbs and the City, and takes the pain away from riding uphill.

How it works

I used the bike a few times - which cost me approx $7 a ride.

It’s easy to use... download the app, find the nearest available ride, scan the QR code to unlock the ride and when done, lock the ride in a safe spot. 

 I was wondering how they get charged - apparently there are “lime juicers” who pick up the bikes at night (which are gps tracked) , charge them from home using an electrical outlet and redeploy them. 

Lime charges  a rental fee. It typically costs $8 for 30 minutes - a bit expensive after reading that it cost 50 cents for 30 minutes for students with a .edu email address. 

It also offers a monthly subscription of $29.95 for general users and $14.95 for students that allows them to get up to 100 rides.

It’s getting traction 

 Lime has been well appreciated by users. It recorded 6 million riders within a year of operations and within the next 6 months, this September, had nearly doubled to 11.5 million riders. The service is already available in more than 100 cities in the country. It is also looking at international markets and this year launched in Paris, Berlin, and Zurich snd Sydney.

Lime’s estimate its revenues at $34 million for the year, after having  raised $455 million in funding from investors including Fidelity Management and Research Company, Triton Funds LLC, Atomico, Green Bay Ventures, Frankline Templeton Investments, GV, and Uber. 

Its last round of funding was held in July this year when it raised $335 million in a round led by Google Ventures and Uber that valued it at $1.1 billion.

 Earlier this year, Uber announced plans to acquire bike-sharing company JUMP. In July this year, Lyft also acquired bike sharing company Motivate.

 Other competitors in the market include Bird and Spin.

Issues

Other bikes such as OFO and Mobike closed shop in Sydney and other Cities as residents were complaining about parking problems on sidewalks and bikes were being vandalised,  

There charging is a bit out of kilta. They charged me twice after I replaced a bike which was faulty (not happy!) 

What do you think? 

I used these bikes a number of times, and because there was no gears, they were difficult to ride up inclines. 

Lime’s solution of the “electric assistance” using batteries takes the edge off the uphill! 

They charged between 6-10 for up to 30 mins usage - which was a lot in my view!