Micromobility company Lime has raised $167 million in its IPO, ending nearly a decade as a private company that has seen wild changes as it navigated several major hype cycles and a global pandemic.
The nine-year-old motorcycle and bicycle company, backed by Uber, sold 6.68 million shares at $25 each, in the middle of the price range of $24 to $26. Shares began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “LIME” on Wednesday afternoon, jumping nearly 9% in the first hour.
The long-awaited IPO values Lime at about $1.66 billion, just shy of the price micromobility company Bird received when it merged with the special-purpose acquisition company in 2021.
“Having that strength and perseverance and faith and hope that we will get through the most difficult times. [has] it really paid off in the long run, because there were many days, weeks, months, when I wasn’t sure if Lime would make it through the next three months, four months,” CEO Wayne Ting told TechCrunch in an interview on Wednesday.
Lime has been considering an IPO for years. In 2021, following a $523 million funding round, Ting told TechCrunch that the company was eyeing an IPO in 2022. He reheated the idea in 2023, saying Lime is still waiting for the right market conditions.
Ultimately, however, Ting said he only wants to go public when he can prove to the market that Lime is a more sustainable company than the likes of Bird.
“We felt that we needed to show that we were going to be a self-sustaining, profitable, free-flowing business, and that has happened over the past three years. [where] we’ve had good three-year cash flow results,” he said. “I think the timing is right, because the business is strong. There is still a lot of growth ahead of us.”
Lime needs money. In its IPO filing in May, the company expressed “significant doubt” that it could continue as a going concern. Lime said it needs the IPO money to help settle about $1 billion in debt, more than half of which is due by the end of this year, although some of that debt could be restructured. Besides the IPO, Lime told potential investors, he will have to find other sources of financing.
Lime is riding on that financial edge because the micromobility industry has proven to be brutal over the past few years, even in good times. Bird had to file for bankruptcy protection after going public, and other competitors merged (Tier and Dott), delisted from major exchanges (Micromobility.com), or went out of business entirely (Superpedestrian).
Amidst this turmoil, Lime has managed to improve its revenue over the past few years. It generated $521 million in 2023, $686.6 million in 2024, and $886.7 million last year. The company also reduced its net loss from $122.3 million in 2023, to $33.9 million in 2024, although that number has dropped to $59.3 million in 2025. (The company reported adjusted gross profit in 2025 of more than $400 million, when the discount costs like depreciation.)
That growth came largely from Lime’s ability to grow globally. It now operates in 230 cities in 29 countries. But the company also relies 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 other cities.)
Ting said Lime’s focus on reducing unit costs and its ability to use software and machine learning to manage city-by-city operations have helped Lime create a financially stable business. And he said he only expects those benefits to improve as Lime gains access to public markets.
“It’s more money for us to invest in growing and growing Lime, investing back into our technology. I feel like a lot of the benefits we have from being the only skilled user, the only profitable operator, will only grow as we go public,” he said. “It’s a real business game of inches, and we’re always looking for this 1%, 2% improvement.”
Ting also said that he believes that becoming 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 in someone who works in the market and the person who works in the business will go out of business in six to 12 months. They want a sustainable long-term partnership, and now that we’re public, our funds are available to any city administrator who wants to decide who will be a good long-term partner,” he said.
This story has been updated with information about Lime’s stock starting trading and an interview with CEO Wayne Ting.
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