Lime began life as a public company after years of uncertainty

Micromobility Lime raised $167 million in its IPO, ending a nearly decade-long run as a private company that saw significant valuation swings as it navigated multiple major hype cycles and a global pandemic.

The nine-year-old scooter and bike company, backed by Uber, sold 6.68 million shares at $25 a share, at the midpoint of the $24 to $26 price range. Shares began trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol “LIME” on Wednesday afternoon. Jumping About 9% in the first hour.

The long-awaited IPO pegs Lime’s valuation at about $1.66 billion, just below the price that micromobility startup Bird took When it merged with a special purpose acquisition company In 2021.

“Having that resilience and patience and faith and optimism that we’ll get through the toughest moments has really paid off in the long run, because there have been many days and weeks and months where I wasn’t sure if Lime was going to make it through the next three or four months,” CEO Wayne Ting told TechCrunch in an interview on Wednesday. “Being here today as a public company is extremely rewarding, and it has taken a lot of heart, sweat and tears to get to this point.”

Lime has been thinking about going public for years. In 2021, following a $523 million funding round, Ting told TechCrunch that the company was It is eyeing an IPO in 2022. He reheated the idea in 2023, saying Lyme is still waiting Correct market conditions.

Ultimately, though, Ting said he only wants to go public when he can prove to the market that Lime is a far more sustainable company than one like Bird.

“We felt like we needed to prove that we were going to be a self-sustaining, profitable company with positive free cash flow, and it’s only happened over the last three years, (that) we’ve had three years of positive free cash flow results.” “I think the timing is right, because the business is strong. We still have a lot of growth ahead of us.”

Lime needs money. In its initial public offering filing in May, the company expressed “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern. Lime said it needs proceeds from the IPO to help resolve about $1 billion in liabilities, more than half of which is due by the end of this year, though some of that debt is convertible. Without an initial public offering, Lime told potential investors that it would need to find other sources of financing.

Lime has this financial advantage because the micromobility industry has proven to be fairly brutal over the past few years, even in good times. Bird had to file for bankruptcy protection and restructuring after it went public, and other competitors merged (Class and point), was delisted from the main stock exchanges (Micromobility.com), or stopped working completely (Super infantry).

Amid this chaos, Lime has been able to improve its revenue over the past few years. It earned $521 million in 2023, $686.6 million in 2024, and $886.7 million last year. The company also reduced its losses from $122.3 million in 2023, to only $33.9 million in 2024, although this number will rise again in 2025 to $59.3 million. (The company reported adjusted gross profit in 2025 of more than $400 million, when deducting costs such as depreciation.)

This growth has largely come from Lime’s ability to expand globally. It now operates in 230 cities in 29 countries. But the company is also somewhat reliant on Uber, which owns 24% of Lime and accounted for more than 14% of its revenue last year. (Uber allows people to book Lime rides through its app in some cities.)

Lime’s focus on reducing unit costs and its ability to use software and machine learning to manage city-by-city operations is what has helped Lime create a more financially sustainable business, Ting said. He said he expects these advantages to only improve now that Lime has access to mass markets.

“It’s more capital for us to invest in growth and expansion of Lime, and in investing back into our technology. I feel like a lot of the advantages we have of being the only skilled operator, the only profitable operator, will be magnified now that we’re a public company,” he said. “It’s a real business inch game, and we’re constantly looking for that 1% or 2% improvement.”

Ting also said he believes being a public company will encourage more cities to partner with Lime.

“I know a lot of cities don’t like the fact that sometimes they bring an operator into the market and that operator will go out of business within six to 12 months. They want a long-term, sustainable partnership, and now that we’re a public company, our financials are available to any city regulator looking to determine who would be a good long-term partner.”

This story has been updated with information about the start of trading in Lime stock From an interview with CEO Wayne Ting.