More E-Scooter News

The e-scooter business just keeps heating up, it would seem. The most recent news, announced this morning, is that Uber is investing in Lime as part of a $335 million financing round for the bikeshare and e-scooter company. GV (Alphabet Inc.’s venture capital arm) is leading the deal and values Lime at $1.1 billion. (FYI, Lime’s rival Bird Rides is apparently valued at $2 billion.) As part of the partnership between Uber and Lime, Uber will be making e-scooter rentals available through its app. That means the company that started as a ride hail service now offers customers access to bikes as a result of its recent acquisition of Jump, as well as soon-to-come e-scooters. (Uber isn’t the only one expanding its offerings—Lyft is purchasing the bikeshare company Motivate, which operates the Citi Bike program in New York in addition to other bikeshare programs.) One of the reasons that Uber cited for being interested in Lime is because the company already has scooters available in several major cities. However, Uber has apparently also filed an application in San Francisco to introduce its own scooter service. It will certainly be interesting to see how that unfolds but suffice it to say, the wave of e-scooters is building speed rapidly…and likely coming to a city near you.