At the Düsseldorf Media Harbor: The US provider is about to go public.
(Photo: Kim Pottkämper)
Berlin The e-scooter industry is currently reorganizing itself. According to financial circles, the German market leader Tier Mobility recently negotiated a merger with its Swedish rival Voi. But this is no reason for concern for its major US competitor Lime: “Consolidation should help the entire industry,” said company boss Wayne Ting in an interview with Handelsblatt. Many scooter providers are currently not doing well.
However, the Americans do not want to use the weakness of the competition to make takeovers. Instead, Lime wants to prepare its own IPO – and is actually just waiting for the right time. A lot will depend on how British chip designer Arm’s debut on the stock market goes this week.
Lime originally wanted to go public in 2022. But the turnaround in the capital markets stopped these plans.
Lime wants to soon be able to finance investments itself
In order to get ready for a new start, Ting cleaned up and made huge savings – but unlike competitors such as Tier, Superpedestrian, Bird or Voi, did not lay off any employees. However, the days when Lime constantly expanded into new countries are over. The company focuses on existing markets. Lime is currently active in 30 countries.
It’s paying off: Lime has been posting positive results for a year and a half, at least based on operating profit (Ebitda). From January to June, adjusted Ebitda was $27 million, after $15 million for all of 2022. The company’s vehicles are used for an average of five years – longer than the competition. And the trend towards replaceable batteries also makes operation cheaper.
Revenues climbed by 45 percent to $250 million in the first six months of the year thanks to numerous tenders won – meaning they rose significantly more than their competitor Tier, which wants to reach around 300 million euros in 2023 as a whole. Lime does not want to publish specific figures for Germany; the company only announced that the number of active users had increased by a good five percent.
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“We want to be cash flow positive this year,” says company boss Ting. “Then we can finance all our investment expenditure ourselves.” This is an important “step towards a healthy industry” and also a turning point. To date, no provider has managed to do this by providing insight into their figures.
The US group Bird, which has already withdrawn from the German and many other markets, is currently the only company in the industry to be listed on the stock exchange. In the second quarter, Bird slowly approached the positive free cash flow limit, but sales fell significantly.
The Lime boss continues to focus on Europe – despite the scooter ban in Paris.
(Photo: Lime)
During the corona pandemic, the e-scooter industry became the darling of investors and was able to easily attract large amounts of investment. But those days are over given the turnaround in interest rates and weak global consumption.
In addition, the industry must prove how economically sustainable its business really is. All providers are currently making net losses. This scares investors away. Former stars like the start-up Voi have now lost their unicorn status and are no longer valued at a billion dollars.
Ting: No city wants to imitate Paris
In addition to the financial ones, the regulatory requirements are also growing: Lime is particularly affected by the e-scooter ban in Paris. According to a citizen survey, the French capital no longer renewed the licenses for Lime, Dott and Tier a year before the Summer Olympics. The original 5,000 white and green Lime e-scooters have disappeared from the streets of Paris since September 1st. Instead, the number of e-bikes has been expanded to 10,000, says Ting.
In addition to e-scooters, e-bikes are now an important pillar for the company. Three years ago, Lime acquired Uber’s red Jump e-bikes as part of a financing round.
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Despite the Paris decision, Ting has high hopes for the European market. No other city has so far announced that it will follow Paris’ example. And the company boss also wants to focus more on Europe when it comes to the products that the company uses. “Some of the final assembly steps on our two-wheelers are now taking place in Europe and not just in Asia. There will be more of that in the near future.”
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