Lime's valuation fell 79 percent in a single funding round in 2020. The scooter company had been worth $2.4 billion a year earlier, and the pandemic had forced it to pause service in 99 percent of its markets. Uber led a rescue round and handed Lime its Jump bike business. Six years later, Lime filed to go public as a growing company. In 2025 it carried about 19 million riders in roughly 230 cities across 29 countries, and its revenue rose 29 percent.

Neutron, Doing Business as Lime

Brad Bao and Toby Sun, both executives at the venture arm of China's Fosun International, founded LimeBike in January 2017. Andreessen Horowitz led its first $12 million round. Riders found a scooter or bike on an app map, unlocked it with their phone, and left it at the end of the trip. A 2018 round made it a unicorn. The legal company was named Neutron Holdings, a name it kept through the IPO.

Twenty-Five Dollars on Nasdaq

Wayne Ting became CEO in 2020, and Lime spent the next years building its own vehicles and its relationships with cities. It filed for its IPO in May 2026 after reporting $886.7 million in revenue for 2025. Lime priced its shares at $25 in July 2026, selling about 6.7 million of them, and listed on Nasdaq as LIME. It still trades there today.

Cover: Bicycle, Édouard Jean Vuillard. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a bicycle on the street.