Micromobility company Lime has raised $167 million in its IPO, ending an almost decade-long run as a private company that saw wild valuation swings as it navigated multiple major hype cycles and a global pandemic.
نو سال پرانی اسکوٹر اور بائیک کمپنی، جسے Uber کی حمایت حاصل ہے، نے اپنی $24 سے $26 قیمت کی حد کے وسط میں، ہر ایک $25 پر 6.68 ملین شیئرز فروخت کیے۔ Shares started trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker “LIME” on Wednesday afternoon, jumping around 9% in the first hour.
طویل انتظار کے بعد آئی پی او لائم کی قیمت تقریباً 1.66 بلین ڈالر بتاتی ہے، جس کی قیمت ساتھی مائیکرو موبیلیٹی کمپنی برڈ نے 2021 میں ایک خاص مقصد کے حصول کی کمپنی کے ساتھ ضم ہونے پر حاصل کی تھی۔
“Having that resilience and patience and belief and optimism that we will get through the toughest moments [has] really paid dividends over the long run, because there were many days, weeks, months, where I wasn’t sure if Lime was going to make it past the next three months, four months,” CEO Wayne Ting told TechCrunch in an interview Wednesday. “To be here today as a public company feels incredibly rewarding, and it took a lot of heart, sweat, and tears to get to this point.”
لائم برسوں سے آئی پی او پر غور کر رہا ہے۔ In 2021, following a $523 million funding round, Ting told TechCrunch the company was eyeing an IPO in 2022 . He reheated the idea in 2023, saying that Lime was still waiting for the right market conditions .
Ultimately, though, Ting said he only wanted to go public when he could prove to the market that Lime was a far more durable company than one like Bird.
“We felt like we needed to demonstrate we were going to be a self-sustaining, profitable, free cash flow positive business, and that only happened over the last three years, [where] we had three years of free cash flow positive results,” he said. “I think the timing is right, because the business is strong. We still have a lot of growth ahead of us.”
چونے کو فنڈز کی ضرورت ہے۔ مئی میں اپنی آئی پی او فائلنگ میں، کمپنی نے "کافی شک" کا اظہار کیا کہ یہ جاری تشویش کے طور پر جاری رہ سکتی ہے۔ Lime said it needs the IPO proceeds to help resolve around $1 billion in liabilities, more than half of which is due by the end of this year, though some of that debt is convertible. آئی پی او کے بغیر، لائم نے ممکنہ سرمایہ کاروں کو بتایا، اسے فنانسنگ کے دوسرے ذرائع تلاش کرنے کی ضرورت ہوگی۔
چونا اس مالیاتی کنارے پر سوار ہے کیونکہ مائیکرو موبیلٹی انڈسٹری پچھلے کچھ سالوں میں، اچھے وقتوں میں بھی کافی سفاک ثابت ہوئی ہے۔ Bird had to file for bankruptcy protection and restructure after it went public, and other competitors have either merged ( Tier and Dott ), been delisted from major exchanges ( Micromobility.com ), or gone out of business entirely ( Superpedestrian ).
افراتفری کے درمیان، لائم گزشتہ چند سالوں میں اپنی آمدنی کو بہتر بنانے میں کامیاب رہی ہے۔ اس نے 2023 میں 521 ملین ڈالر، 2024 میں 686.6 ملین ڈالر اور پچھلے سال 886.7 ملین ڈالر کمائے۔ کمپنی نے اپنے نقصانات کو 2023 میں 122.3 ملین ڈالر سے کم کر کے 2024 میں صرف 33.9 ملین ڈالر کر دیا، حالانکہ یہ تعداد 2025 میں 59.3 ملین ڈالر تک پہنچ گئی۔ (The company reported adjusted gross profit in 2025 of more than $400 million, when discounting costs like depreciation.)
یہ نمو بڑی حد تک لائم کی عالمی سطح پر پیمائش کرنے کی صلاحیت سے آئی ہے۔ اب یہ 29 ممالک کے 230 شہروں میں کام کر رہا ہے۔ But the company is also somewhat dependent on Uber, which owns 24% of Lime and accounted for more than 14% of its revenue last year. (اوبر کچھ شہروں میں لوگوں کو اپنی ایپ کے ذریعے لائم رائیڈز بک کرنے کی اجازت دیتا ہے۔)
Ting said Lime’s focus on driving down unit costs and its ability to use software and machine learning to manage city-by-city operations are what helped Lime create a more financially sustainable business. And he said he only expects those advantages to improve now that Lime has access to the public markets.
“It’s more capital for us to invest in growth and expanding Lime, in investing back into our technology. I feel like a lot of the advantages that we have being the only skilled operator, the only profitable operator, is only going to amplify now that we’re public,” he said. “It’s a real game of inches business, and we’re constantly looking for this 1%, 2% improvement.”
Ting also said he believes being a public company will encourage more cities to partner with Lime. Error 500 (Server Error)!!1500.That’s an error.There was an error. Please try again later.That’s all we know.
