Insights and news from the ATOM Mobility team

The bike-sharing industry is on the rise. It is the only mobility industry that statistics indicate didn't experience significant losses during the pandemic. The future is also bright as there are government initiatives around the world to support bike-sharing. However, there are things that newcomers in the business can learn from the previous leaders - success in the industry with high demand is no guarantee that the company will be a success.

A bike is a comfortable means of transportation in regions where motorized vehicles are widely used but create heavy traffic jams and pollute the air. This is a problem in regions like Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe. And this is where and why bike-sharing has become popular. According to the Statista Mobility Outlook, bike-sharing was the only mobility sector that grew its global revenues during the pandemic by a third in 2020. The single-person set-up and open-air nature of bike riding made it the perfect mode of transportation for the pandemic.

Bike-sharing is a shared transport service in which convectional bikes or electric bikes are made available for shared use to individuals on a short-term basis for a price or free. Development of software, GPS technologies, mobile payments, and IoT devices, as well as reduced locking and tracking system costs for bikes, have recently led to the popularity of a dockless bike-sharing system that allows users to leave the bike anywhere convenient.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the bike-sharing market was valued at USD 3 billion in 2020, and it is anticipated that it will reach USD 4 billion by 2026. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the bike-sharing sector in several countries. The most negative consequences were the daily decline in bike bookings.

Bike demand is majorly driven by developing countries, such as China and India that especially focus on e-bikes. China has always been the largest exporter of e-bikes. According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the country's output of electric bicycles reached 25.48 million during the first 10 months of 2020, a year-on-year increase of 33.4%. During this period, the revenue of major bicycle manufacturing companies reached about USD 22 billion, an increase of 16.8%. According to the China Bicycle Association, from January to September 2020, the volume of bicycle exports was 12% up on the same period last year, rising to USD 2.43 billion.

However, the bike-sharing market growth in Europe is predicted to be the fastest across the globe, as it is anticipated that a large number of service providers will venture into the region in the coming years. In regional countries, bikes are being rapidly made available near major transit hubs, such as railway stations, thereby offering users convenience and ease of travel. In addition, the European Union (EU) also promotes such services, because they are environment-friendly and help to reduce traffic.

Global bike-sharing service market size between 2020 and 2026 in billion U.S. dollars according to Statista:

Currently, major players in the bike-sharing market are:

- Uber Technologies Inc. - provides opportunities to rent a bike in a partnership with Lime. Jump brand bikes are available after Lime acquired the Jump company.

- Lyft Inc. - in November 2018, Lyft acquired Motivate, a bicycle-sharing system and the operator of Capital Bikeshare and Citi Bike. It thus became the largest bike-share service in the United States.

- Hellobike - a transportation service platform based in Shanghai, China. Founded in 2016, the company merged with Youon Bike the following year. In a series of fundraising rounds dating back to 2016, Hellobike has raised over US$1.8 billion from investors.

- DiDi Bike - Didi Chuxing Technology Co. is a Chinese vehicle for hire company headquartered in Beijing with over 550 million users and tens of millions of drivers. The company provides app-based transportation services, including bike-sharing.

The biggest companies in the market are associated with China as are the biggest deals. Looking at the recent biggest deals in bike-sharing, the first worth mentioning involved Didi Chuxing’s bike-sharing arm Qingju. It raised USD 600 million in a Series B equity fundraising round and will be granted an additional USD 400 million in loans.

What was also interesting that at the end of 2020 the mobile application of Mobike, one of China's earliest and largest bike-sharing providers, went offline after its acquisition by Meituan three years before. Mobike was acquired by Meituan for USD 2.7 billion in April 2018. In January 2019, in an internal letter to employees Wang Huiwen, co-founder and Senior Vice-President of Meituan, informed them that Mobike will be renamed Meituan Bike and that the firm would become a unit of the new parent's location-based service department.

The growing interest in e-bikes

One trend that will definitely influence the industry in the near future is the growing interest in e-bike sharing. Pedelecs or pedal electric cycles or EPAC (Electronically Power Assisted Cycles) are becoming increasingly popular. This is a type of electric bicycle where the rider’s pedaling is assisted by a small electric motor. Such vehicles are capable of higher speeds, compared to manually operated bikes. As the demand for higher speeds for short-distance traveling increases, so does the preference for e-bikes. People are ignoring the fact that sharing services on pedal-assisted bikes are cheaper than e-bikes, as the latter offers effortless driving, more convenience, and variable motor power, as well as higher speeds.

One of the most interesting investment deals in 2020 that underlines the interest in e-bikes involved London-based free-to-use shared electric bike firm London-based HumanForest. It announced in September that it had raised £1.8 million. HumanForest offers 20 minutes free per day and a corporate subscription service. It launched in June 2020. In just four months of the company’s operations, 14,000 riders have taken almost 42,000 rides with the number of rides increasing by over 100% month on month!

Later that year, the company raised £1.27m via crowdfunding with the support of over 520 investors, of whom approximately 30% were trial users. The company says that it ran a successful trial during summer 2020 in London with 200 e-bikes. The new funds will be used to expand the fleet to 1,500 e-bikes.

HumanForest’s business model is based on three sources of revenue - users pay 15p per minute after their free daily 10-minute ride is up, while partner companies pay to advertise their brand on the HumanForest digital platform and companies pay to offer their employees further minutes for the HumanForest fleet.

Bike-sharing - more positive than negative aspects

If we analyze positive, as well as negative aspects that could influence the future of bike-sharing, the positive aspects far exceed the negative ones. The only negative aspects are high initial investment costs, as well as the rise in bike vandalism and theft. Positive aspects that could stimulate the bike-sharing business in the future are growing venture capital investments, an increase in the inclusion of e-bikes in the sharing fleet, as well as technological advances in bike-sharing systems.

There is also increased interest from governments in different initiatives for the development of bike-sharing infrastructure. Furthermore, governments are offering subsidies to service providers for developing stations and expanding their reach to a large number of commuters. For instance, in 2018, Chinese Municipal governments subsidized the Public Bike Sharing Program development to encourage non-motorized transport and offer convenient, flexible, and low-cost mobility options. Meanwhile, in Europe, the new public bike-sharing system was launched in the Italian Municipality of Trieste in February 2020. The system, known as BiTS, is being implemented as part of the city's Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Plan at a cost of EUR 390,000, with the aim of developing sustainable mobility by promoting walking and cycling to reduce urban pollution.

Despite the fact that interest in bike-sharing is rising and will continue to do so, it is equally important to learn and not forget the mistakes of pioneers of the industry. For example, the company Ofo was founded in 2014 as a university project, but soon afterward raised $866 million from investors led by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Ofo was a station-free bike-sharing platform operated via an online mobile application. In total, over the course of nine investment rounds, the company has raised USD 2.2 billion but has still consistently experienced cash flow problems that were driven largely by intense competition in a market that has yet to be proven to be commercially viable according to analysts interviewed by Forbes.

Fees dropped to 1 yuan ($0.14) for each hour of use and sometimes were even free. Despite this fact, Ofo still managed to reach a valuation of $2 billion in a 2017 funding round and around $3 billion at its highest point, and at one time the company deployed more than 10 million bikes globally and attracted as many as 200 million users. “The company’s cash-burning operations and high valuation have combined to deter potential investors, and when capital became scarce, the startup could no longer cover its once sprawling operations,” wrote Forbes.

In 2018, Ofo announced a massive reduction in operations, and by 2020 it faced a large amount of unpayable debt as a result of which the company was no longer operating bike rentals. “Explanations of what exactly went wrong are still evolving, but it seems likely that the mind-boggling amounts of cash pumped into what wasn't essentially a "bike-sharing" model, but rather a rental business pepped up by a smartphone app, had something to do with it. Yes, the company bought bikes and placed them in the streets without docks for anybody to use, and that was somewhat new. And yes, a smartphone app served as the key. But the company owned the bikes, just like any old-fashioned rental shop, and incurred huge maintenance costs,” explained analysts from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, who were quoted in its magazine “Own the future”.

So it doesn't matter how big the demand for the service is, you should always apply simple business principles to your business.

If you have decided to launch your vehicle sharing business using existing software, without developing it from scratch, this article will help you to understand what software features you could seek and ask for.

The sharing business is growing worldwide, as is the number of sharing app providers. At ATOM Mobility from time to time we meet clients who are already using some platform, but are not totally happy with it. Moreover they don't know about the multitude of built-in features that they can have at no extra cost. So let's look at some default as well as “nice to have” features that the best sharing software solutions must have.    

Starting the ride

There are several options to start the ride, so the software should be adjustable for all options. It is possible to put a QR code on the vehicle so that the code can be scanned through the app by the user. For the software it means that there should be a functionality in the app that allows the QR code to be scanned, finding the particular vehicle, and allowing the user to drive it as well as letting the system and others know that this vehicle is not currently available.

Another option for the user to start the ride is by clicking the button on the app, thus unlocking it. This function is especially popular in car and moped sharing. The app should link the particular user to the vehicle and the software should allow the ride. Despite the fact that QR codes are more popular, at ATOM we invite our customers to think it over. Unlocking via the app can sometimes be a more reliable choice because QR codes could be broken or not fully visible. In addition, users could have issues with their cameras, so why not start the ride with just one click?

Although it is not very popular, some vehicle sharing companies still offer users the option of making a reservation for the vehicle. In this case, software should do all the jobs - the user identifies the vehicle on the map, makes the reservation, and the vehicle should then wait for this particular user, who scans the QR code or pushes the button when he is ready for the ride. This functionality of keeping the vehicle for a particular time and later offering it to another user should also be automatically managed by the software.

Another challenge is how to avoid the problem of users who missed the previous ride making a reservation for the next ride? And what happens if the same user doesn't show up two times in a row? These limitations on reservations should also be directly available on the platform.

And what happens if a user starts using a vehicle other than the one that was reserved for him? The possibility that this might occur is low, but still should be tested.

Connectivity and tracking the vehicle

Connection to IoT lies on two shoulders – the IoT device that is on the vehicle and the software. It is crucial for you and the operators to always know where the vehicle is located and what its current status is. The software should provide the opportunity to track vehicles and obtain overall information about driving speed, acceleration, and errors. It should also have system alerts in case something happens; for example, someone tries to steal the vehicle or a rider drives outside the parking zone.

Remember that every vehicle makes money for your business every minute that it spends on the street. If something is wrong, then it is in your best interest to know this as soon as possible, as well as to locate the vehicle and dispatch the service team to conduct a check-up. Additionally, if you take care of the fleet and keep it in good condition, malfunctioning risks and additional costs in long term are going to be minimized.

ATOM Mobility software currently supports Segway, Teltonika, Acton, Omni, Okai, Fitrider, Freego, Zimo, Comodule, Hongji, Yadea and Niu IoT devices. Existing integrations allow ATOM Mobility customers to quickly scale the fleet, test and add new vehicle models, and not be limited to their plans. Of course, it is also possible to do custom integrations upon request.

Everything revolves around payments and preventing fraud

Before having anything to do with the user, it is crucial to identify him. In some countries, it is even mandatory, including for scooter and bike-sharing services. But it is also important for your own safety. ATOM Mobility has recently started to collaborate with Veriff – an API solution that allows any website and mobile application to match a person with their government-issued ID. So if the vehicle sharing service provider is using ATOM Mobility software, Veriff's API will directly enable integration of verification processes into mobile apps. It takes less than 2 minutes for Veriff to automatically verify the document. ATOM Mobility supports also other ID verification tools such as Sumsub. However, it is vital to make sure that the tool is robust, offers a good user experience, and is automated and lightning fast before integrating it.

By the way, user experience is very important not only concerning identification, payments, or other separate features but also in regard to the overall convenience of using the platform. Players in the vehicle-sharing business fight for conversions. And this can mean a lot in terms of money. For example, if the software has a conversion rate of 20% on average, then registration for the first ride from 100,000 clients reached will bring less than EUR 225,000 in turnover per month compared to the company that has an average conversion rate of 50%.

When it comes to payments, nowadays there are a lot of payment providers that can be integrated with sharing mobility software. Before choosing one, it is crucial to collect feedback and make sure that integration has a convenient user interface, it is safe and the service provider is stable, i.e. there won't be any significant disruptions. ATOM Mobility clients usually use the most popular global payment providers such as Stripe, Adyen, Paypal and Klarna. In some cases, local payment providers are needed due to legal restrictions, for example, in Saudi Arabia we partner with Hyperpay and in Ukraine, we partner with Concord. So integration with these payment providers is already set up within ATOM Mobility software. Of course, custom integrations can also be done and additional service providers added.

After the payment has been made and the ride has been completed, the invoice should be delivered straight to the user's e-mail box and also made available through the customer profile on the app. For brand awareness and user convenience, it is good that the software is able to personalize the invoice by adding logo and other company details. You can probably even add promotional messages for the next ride. And you should check whether an e-invoice delivered straight to the e-mail address is mandatory, because in some countries it is.

Of course, the most valuable client for the company is one, who makes recurring payments and rides more than once. Recently major players in the field have announced subscription services. In May 2021 Lime rolled out the monthly subscription service Lime Prime. In contrast, Bird offers a monthly fee rent their scooters. The best fleet sharing software has subscription functionality available, so you should definitely consider using it also for your business.

Access through the dashboard and the most advanced features

All the information and functionality mentioned above and a lot more should be accessible through the dashboard available, together with the software and the app. Every employee of the company involved in the vehicle sharing organization process should have convenient access to it from any available device. However, there should be an opportunity to regulate which user has access to what features - different reasons, not every team member needs full access to the dashboard.

Usually, the dashboard helps to manage the fleet, rides, and customers. For the convenience of data analysis, the dashboard should have reporting and data exporting capabilities. An additional feature that you definitely need to look for is heatmaps and rebalancing suggestions, which will help you to plan your fleet and the location of your vehicles by predicting the busiest areas in the city, where vehicles are in the highest demand during certain hours of the day. This functionality is automatically also available through the best software.

Private fleets and working with corporates

And last but not least. Sometimes there is an opportunity to make at least part of your fleet private. This is a corporate and private sharing scheme. In corporate sharing schemes, for example, you can offer part of your fleet to some large company, so this company’s employees have exclusive access to this fleet. In private sharing schemes, you can grant exclusive access to the vehicles to residents of a specific hotel or building. There are many other options available, but the main message is that even this functionality is integrated into the best fleet sharing software, so choose your software partner carefully and wisely.

Software reliability

None of the features discussed here matter if you don’t have an appropriate platform. The biggest complaints from the end users that sharing businesses receive concern the instability of the platform. So always remember to start by checking SLA. It is the indicator of stability that shows the number of minutes during the month that the system experienced some problems. The platform should have indicator of 99.5% -99.9%. If the SLA is lower, all other features don’t make sense as you will definitely received a lot of complaints from the user that something is not working. If you have any additional questions or are interested in integrating some custom features, contact the ATOM Mobility team to find out more. We are one of the biggest and one of the most experienced players in the market.

Nowadays it is possible to run several businesses and one of them can be a vehicle sharing service. Amir Timo Marouf (in the picture on the left) is living proof of this. He is a dentist and runs the mobility company tretty in Münster, Germany.

Launch date: Spring of 2020
Country: Germany, Münster
Fleet: muscle-powered kick-scooters and bikes
Web page: https://www.tretty.de
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tretty
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/tretty/id1509734922
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.tretty.app

Amir Timo Marouf founded the mobility company tretty together with Max Weldert. “It all started in school when we knew that one day we would do something together. What exactly was not yet clear back then,” Amir tells the story of how the company started. He says that he always had a passion for sharing, so he considered starting something around it. Max always has been and still is into mobility with the focus on muscle-powered vehicles. “So directly after my exam in dentistry, we took a trip with two lying bikes from Münster to Lisbon. We covered a distance of 2600 kilometers. During this time we more or less developed the whole idea around tretty, because we had a lot of time to think,” Amir remembers.

Motivation and passion

After getting back, Amir and Max set up a team. They found an accountant who took care of all the finances and an engineer. “When our engineer heard of the idea, he was fascinated. And we decided that in the beginning, we won't work for money. It was only motivation and passion that drove us further,” says Amir.

However, it was still not clear what vehicle should be used and whether people living in Münster want to have this service at all... “So we just started a crowdfunding campaign and set a very high target of EUR 50 000. This would be enough to buy 100 scooters. And we succeeded! And we even got 20% more financing,” Amir recalls.

In the crowdfunding announcement, the founders wrote that they will develop their own scooters. As they now had the money, there was pressure on them to do it. And it was only then that Max and Amir realized how big the project would actually be... But they did it!

Struggle with IT

The tretty engineer made a drawing on the basis of which the scooter is built from the scratch by tretty. The team found a manufacturer in the Czech Republic and did a lot just by doing. “In the beginning, I built a website using WordPress. You can learn everything nowadays from videos on the internet if you're motivated. Afterwards, we were very lucky to have two students on the team. They were both at university doing their Master's and they had both experiences in IT. They managed to build a website for the maintenance team,” says Amir.

Next step – the tretty team started to develop its own app. “We realized the importance of the time and also the fact that our business is not building IT solutions. We started to compare existing app developers, who offer white-label solutions. We compared all the big ones. But as we wanted to keep everything local, we hired a company that is focusing on car sharing without any experience in free- floating. It took a long time to register in the app and type in all the information required…” recalls Amir.

So at some point, tretty team decided to change the software provided and chose ATOM. Now with a new app, they are getting a significant amount of new users as the registration is a lot faster. That was one of the main reasons why they switched initially. “I'm also happy that ATOM is always open to optimizations and is ready to talk about alternatives,” says Amir.

Private and business clients, locals, and tourists

Users of the service are people living in Münster and around, including tourists. There are a lot of students in the city - around 60 000 of all the 314 000 people living there. And students are among the most active scooter users. The weather has a big impact - if it is appropriate for riding, the number of daily users increases.

tretty also has one private fleet in Münster, which is owned by a big insurance company. Right now, tretty is also currently discussing possible collaborations with other B2B partners. “There are two options available. We can set up the software for the partner and provide it with vehicles. Then they could use tretty brand and have a franchise. Or they can create their own brand,” explains Amir.

What's next?

The team of tretty is considering different scenarios for expansion. However, Amir says that they still have some homework to do: “The focus is currently on Münster. As soon as we have validated we will consider expansion.”

And what is the plan for Amir? Let's not forget that he is also working as a dentist. “I think one of the main reasons why you can do more than one thing is the enormous speed of digitalization of everything. With a smartphone, you can answer emails from everywhere and even design things and build websites. I think this would not have been possible 10 years ago. It is, of course, tough to multi-task. Mondays are my tretty days. Before and after work as well as at weekends I do tretty. Then I try to schedule my time for my girlfriend and for myself. I'd say that a month or two ago it was really tough but now it’s starting to get better. I think the main reason why it works is that it comes from passion and not from pressure.”

Vehicle-sharing and micro-mobility soon became a trend had brought tremendous success to entrepreneurs that jumped into a crazy ride by establishing a company in this field. Bird reached a $1 billion valuation in seven months, thus becoming the fastest startup ever to reach unicorn status. Lime reached unicorn status in 18 months. This year Helbiz plans to become the first micro-mobility company listed on NASDAQ. Vehicle-sharing and micro-mobility are still on the rise and it is still possible to create a successful business.

According to McKinsey & Company's "Micromobility’s 15,000-mile check-up" report, market potential by the year 2030 is:

- $200 billion to $300 billion in the United States;

- $100 billion to $150 billion in Europe;

- $30 billion to $50 billion in China.

This equals about a quarter of McKinsey & Company's forecasted global shared autonomous-driving market potential of roughly $1,600 billion in 2030. So if you are considering starting your own business with sharing, this is the right time to do it. But let's look at how leaders are doing, the milestones of their business success, and the trends they are setting for the future in the sharing business.

The fastest double unicorn ever

The company Bird attained this status soon after it was founded in September 2017 by Travis VanderZanden. He was already familiar with the market as previously he had worked as an executive at Lyft and Uber. Bird got its first round of funding in February 2018 raising $15 million. Series B round followed in March for $100 million. And the funding round of $150 million in May granted the fastest ever unicorn status. In June 2018, Bird raised an additional $300 million, valuing the company at $2 billion. Prior to Bird, this valuation had never been reached so fast by any startup. Currently, its valuation is estimated at $2.3 billion. Bird has raised $765 million in total funding across five funding rounds. It plans to reach $308 million gross profit by 2023.

Bird is a last-mile electric scooter rental service. What is important here - the company has reached its success with just one vehicle type while others have been adding several types of vehicles to their portfolio. Bird operates in 200 cities globally. Overall more than 95 million rides have been made up to date.

Bird started its business by offering customers a Xiaomi M365 scooter. With the launch of the BirdOne model, the company stopped buying and distributing Segway models.

The price for the service is €1 or $1 (depending on the country) to unlock the scooter. A one-minute ride on the scooter costs €/$0.15. There is also a monthly fee available for renting a scooter - $25. However, prices may vary depending on the country, currency, and local laws.

At the beginning of this year, Bird introduced Global Ride Pass - new pricing plans designed to save money and accelerate the shift away from cars for short-distance trips. Currently, there are four new Global Ride Pass options available:

- Daily Unlimited Rides Pass
- Monthly Unlimited Rides Pass
- Monthly Unlimited Unlocks Pass
- 3-Month Unlimited Unlocks Pass

In the second half of 2020, the company launched Bird Pay that is piloted in two California hubs. This provides users with the opportunity to pay via the Bird app for the purchase in local shops, restaurants, or food trucks as they move around on the scooter.

This year Bird announced that the company is investing $150 million in Europe. The company said that funds will be used to open safe, sustainable micro-mobility programs in over 50 new European cities. The company is also planning to go public by merging with special purpose acquisition company Switchback II. However, it is not yet clear when this could happen.

Alex Wilhelm, a journalist at TechCrunch wrote in 2018 that Bird’s gross margin is 19 percent. He explored that revenues are split as follows - 47% charging, 14% repairs, 11% credit card processing, 5% regulatory costs, and 3% customer support and insurance.

Runner up for the unicorn status

Lime is the brand of the transportation company Neutron Holdings, Inc., previously known also as LimeBike. The company is based in San Francisco, USA. In comparison with Bird, Lime’s vehicle-sharing business takes different forms: electric scooters, electric bikes, regular pedal bikes, electric mopeds, and car-sharing systems in various cities around the world. Lime operates with dockless vehicles that users find and unlock via a mobile app. It finds the location of available vehicles via GPS.

Lime was founded in January 2017 by Brad Bao and Toby Sun - former executives of the venture capital firm Fosun International. Over a period of two months, the company raised US$12 million in venture funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Lime's first location was the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and they launched with 125 bicycles. In October 2017 the company closed a Series B round. Afterward Lime announced that it was valued at $225 million. It became a unicorn in 2018 following a $335 million funding round and $1.1 billion valuations. To date, Lime has raised $935 million in total funding across five rounds.

Lime operated in more than 120 cities over 30 countries as of September 2019. It started 2020 with the announcement that it had added 11 locations to this list, including several US metropolitan areas such as Atlanta. In the first quarter of 2021 Lime announced that it has allocated $50 million to its bike-share operation, an investment that has been used to develop a new e-bike and will fund its expansion this year to another 25 cities in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

This announcement came a month after Lime announced plans to add electric mopeds to its micromobility platform. Lime is launching the effort by deploying 600 electric mopeds on its platform in Washington, D.C. The company is also working with officials to pilot the mopeds in Paris. Lime mopeds are manufactured by NIU, a Chinese company that also supplies mopeds to New York City-based mobility company Revel. NIU’s mopeds typically have a range of between 25–100 miles. Lime’s mopeds will be speed limited to 28 mph and can be controlled and monitored via wireless connectivity.

Lime uses many different manufacturers for the production of bikes and scooters. Other vehicles in Lime's fleet include:

- Lime-S electric scooters - four different models are currently in use: Lime-S Ninebot ES4, made by Segway with the extra battery attached on to the Main Pole, Lime-S Generation 1, Lime-S Generation 2, Lime-S Generation 3, Lime-S Generation 4.

- Lime-E electric-assist bikes.
- LimeBike - the classic dock-free bicycle.
- LimePod - colorfully branded Fiat 500s, a small, two-door model.

The fee to start any Lime ride is $1.00 and has to be paid no matter what. Afterwards, the user has to pay per minute to ride. Charges are rounded up to the nearest minute and rates and promotions. Users also pay $1 to unlock the car and an additional 40 cents per minute they drive.

In May 2021 Lime rolled out a new monthly subscription service for its electric scooters named Lime Prime. For $5.99 a month, users won't have to pay an initial fee. And in markets with no unlock fees, riders will receive 25 percent off the price of their ride. Subscribers will still pay the per-minute charge, but Lime says that someone who uses one of its scooters every day would save approximately $25 a month under the subscription plan.

Lime made its first quarterly profit in Q3 in 2019 according to Reuters. Wayne Ting, CEO of Lime said that the company generated positive free cash flow in the third quarter, having exited some markets where it was losing money, optimized the operation of its two-wheelers, and cut head office costs. “With these improvements, I believe we’re on track to be fully profitable in the full year 2021,” he told Reuters in an interview.

With micro-mobility to NASDAQ

The first company providing micro-mobility services and making up to NASDAQ seems to be Helbiz. It operates in North America and Europe. With more than 200 employees around the world, the company is the market leader in Italy and it operates e-scooters, e-bicycles and e-mopeds in over 20 cities around the world including Washington D.C., Alexandria, Arlington, Atlanta, Miami, Richmond, Milan and Rome. Helbiz was founded on 16 October 2015 by Italian serial entrepreneur, Salvatore Palella and was the first company to introduce the shared electric scooter model in Italy back in October 2018 through the legalization and regulation of the electric scooters in Italy.

Helbiz announced the intention to have a public offering on NASDAQ and on the Borsa Italiana AIM Italia exchange. In August 2019, the company announced it has completed the initial investment round for approximately $7.13 million. In October 2019, Forever Sharing, a China-based company producing electric smart mobility vehicles has acquired 5% of the Helbiz. This Chinese company invested 8 million dollars in Helbiz by valuing it at 160 million dollars. As a result, Forever Sharing agreed to supply Helbiz with 20,000 electric bicycles and e-scooters by the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 to deploy globally. There was no IPO.

Helbiz has raised a total of $56.9M in funding over 10 rounds. The company’s revenues reached nearly $4 million in 2020 but it plans to have $449M revenue by 2025.

Helbiz offers three vehicle types - e-scooters, e-bikes, and e-mopeds. The company offers the same payment plan for their customers as its competitors - users pay $1 to unlock the vehicle and an additional 30 cents per minute. The exception is the e-moped that charges only 26 cents per minute. Also Helbiz has an unlimited program that costs 29.99 a month.

Helbiz is planning to move forward by using penetration and user base to launch new products - public transit integration & ticketing, HelbizKitchen food delivery, and Native Wallet & Payment System. The company is in the process of obtaining its fintech license in Europe.

To sum it all up:

There is a lot we can learn from the success of these big companies. However, they usually focus on big cities with huge populations, complicated infrastructure, and a big investment required to launch there. At the same time, all over the world small cities are seeking to improve their micro-mobility capabilities. And this is the opportunity. ATOM team will take care of the software - one of the most complicated parts of this business. As we have several years of experience in the vehicle sharing business, we would also be happy to help with any other questions you might have. It is possible to start quickly and launch a vehicle-sharing business in next to no time. Here is the link to our blog. You will find a lot of helpful information there.

P.S. Useful links:
Bird investor presentation: Click here
Helbiz investor presentation: Click here