BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Limebike has raised an additional $70m as part of a Series B extension round bringing the dockless firm’s total investment to $132m since it was launched last June.
The Silicon-Valley-based company – with its motto "Ride for $1, park anywhere" – is up against Chinese players Ofo and Mobike, which have raised billions of dollars in investment.
The first investors in LimeBike were Andreesen Horowitz, an internet-focused venture capital firm, and New-York-based hedge fund Coatue Management, backer of Uber, Lyft and Snap. California-based Fifth Wall Ventures and others participated in the Series B funding round.
"With this new funding and set of partnerships, we are officially shifting gears from being a bikeshare company to a smart mobility solution provider," saids LimeBike CEO and co-founder Toby Sun.
He said the new funds will be used to expand operations, support ongoing research and enhance LimeBike’s fleet, improve mobile applications, and increase the number of bikes. As well as dockless pedal bikes LimeBike operates shared electric-assist bikes, Lime-E, and an electric scooter, Lime-S.
Fifth Wall Ventures is a built-environment venture capital firm backed by Macerich, CBRE, Lennar, Hines, Equity Residential, Prologis, Host Hotels, and Lowe’s Home Improvement.
"LimeBike is increasingly focused on real estate partnerships to help accelerate its growth through distribution with commercial real estate owners that have large national footprints," said Sun.
"Fifth Wall will help support the company’s real estate partnerships strategy."
Brad Greiwe, co-founder of Fifth Wall, said:
"Real estate owners have looked to Fifth Wall to find the optimal partner in the bikesharing ecosystem as commercial real estate owners have a strong vested interest in creating more accessible and livable cities."
He added: "Fifth Wall’s strategic real estate partners want to help LimeBike distribute across consumer real estate endpoints: multifamily, office, and retail real estate. In effect, bringing shared bikes to the last 10 feet of the last mile at these assets will be a win for everyone involved: for LimeBike, for real estate owners, for consumers, for cities, and ultimately for the environment as well."
