By Pritam Biswas
May 8 (Reuters) – Lime, which operates an electric bike and scooter network and is backed by Uber Technologies, reported a jump in yearly revenue in its filing for a U.S. initial public offering.
The San Francisco-based startup did not reveal the terms of the offering in the filing.
Activity in the U.S. IPO market has rebounded after a slowdown earlier in the year linked to volatile equity markets and the war in the Middle East. A flurry of sectors is now looking to tap into growing investor enthusiasm.
Several AI infrastructure providers, defense startups and biotechnology companies have recently filed for U.S. stock market listings, highlighting pent-up demand in the IPO market.
“Lime’s filing reflects both a better IPO market and a stronger company profile than in the previous years. The strong performance of recent listings has helped reopen the window for companies that can show convincing growth stories,” said IPOX Research Associate Lukas Muehlbauer.
Analysts have noted that smaller startups were looking to go public before Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, as it is expected to grab all of the investor interest in the listings space.
SpaceX filed confidentially to go public last month, potentially aiming for a valuation of $1.75 trillion.
IN IPO LIMELIGHT
Lime has been eyeing the public market for many years, even though several companies in the sector have struggled to overcome regulatory hurdles and the high costs of doing business, while some have even filed for bankruptcy, including e-scooter operator Bird.
Founded in 2017 and now led by former Uber executive Wayne Ting, Lime provides short-term rentals of electric bikes and scooters. As of December 31, 2025, the company had operations in about 230 cities across 29 countries.
Lime intends to use the proceeds from the IPO to fund operations, repay all its debt, and invest or acquire complementary technologies, assets or intellectual property.
The company reported revenue growth of 29.1% to $886.7 million in the year ended 2025 and recorded positive free cash flow for the third consecutive full year.
“While the underlying picture has improved meaningfully, the main caveat is that the company remains loss-making and investors will look closely at whether they can turn strong revenue numbers into more consistent profitability,” Muehlbauer said.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Jefferies are among the underwriters of the offering. The company, which filed under the name Neutron Holdings, intends to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LIME”.
(Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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