What are the recent acquisitions in bike sharing all about?

 

With the growth in acceptance of Mobility as a Service,the on-demand transportation providers are looking at bike sharing to complement their offerings.Bike sharing offers a quicker alternative to Uber/Lyft in crowded places at a significantly lower price.This value proposition has lured many investors to invest millions in bike sharing and some high profile acquisitions,which are discussed below.

 

Lyft acquired Motivate in July `18

Lyft acquired Motivate in July `18 in a deal that was valued at approximately $250 million. Motivate is the biggest bike sharing network  in US and operates the likes of  CitiBike, Divvy, Ford Gobike and a few more. Its fleet size was about 32,000 units in June 2018 in US.Lyft has plans to launch its own “Lyft Bikes” post-acquisition. This acquisition is aimed at giving Lyft a foothold in this growing urban transportation market.

 

Uber acquired Jump in April`18

The transaction was valued at ~$2oo million. Jump rents out only E-bikes for sharing but was majorly operational in San Francisco. The acquisition for Uber was aimed at unlocking opportunities in Micro mobility, whereas for Jump the acquisition meant a broader coverage, not just at national but at a global level. Both the companies partnered in January`18 where Uber allowed its users to book Jump e-bikes. We believe, the pilot partnership went well, leading to acquisition three months later.

 

Meituan Dianping acquired Mobike in April `18

Meituan Dianping( valued at $30 billion), the biggest on- demand start-up in China which is active in ride hailing as well as food delivery bought Mobike for $2.7 Billion. The acquisition as per Meituan will help its customers get to nearest restaurant and solve the first and last mile problem. Mobike will benefit from strong capital backing and huge active user base of ~320 million from Meituan, as the bike sharing war in China becomes fiercer every passing day.

 

Yuoun bike acquired Hello Bike in Oct`17

In October `17, Changzhou Youon Public Bicycle System Co Ltd(Youon bike), announced its acquisition of Hellobike,a Shanghai-based bike-rental company to expand its presence in the fast-growing market.At the time of acquisition, Youon had about o.8 million bikes , more than 20 million users and was serving 223 cities.Youon sells bike sharing equipment to bike sharing companies, so this acquisition was aimed at becoming vertically integrated in the bike sharing ecosystem in China.

 

The above information has been sourced from our report titled “Bike sharing Market in US and Europe”. Download free sample to know more