TechCrunch Mobility: Lime’s bet on the IPO

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After years of suggestions and preparation, the Uber-backed electric scooter and bike rental startup Lime submitted an application initial public offering. A micromobility company going public? In 2026? It’s probably the wrong year.

Lima CEO Wayne Ting He has been talking about an IPO for years. TechCrunch spoke with him about this in 2020, 2021, and 2023. It never materialized and I kind of forgot about it, until, boom, the S-1 document, the registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was released early Friday morning.

There are some interesting risk factors in the S-1, although we’re still waiting for Lime to share the terms of the offering.

Revenue is growing, it has positive free cash flow, and net losses narrowed after 2023, although there has been a slight rebound between 2024 and 2025. Uber, which invested in Lime several years ago, still plays an important role for the company. Lime said about 14.3% of its revenue came from its partnership with Uber, which allows customers to find and rent electric scooters and bikes through its app.

All of this suggests that Lime is a growing company headed toward profitability. But there is an important obstacle. Lime has about $1 billion in current liabilities, and about $675.8 million of them are due by the end of 2026. In total, about $846 million is due within 12 months. Lime doesn’t have enough liquidity to pay that, according to its filing. Lime says it clearly in the S-1: if it cannot go public and raise the necessary capital, or change its debt covenants, it may not be able to continue operating as a business.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane, who likes investigating an S-1 as much as I do, spotted some other details in the risk factors. Cities’ investment in their public road infrastructure is a risk factor, according to the company. Lime specifically lists potholes, which made me laugh and then nod my head. Potholes are not good for shared scooters.

Lime also warned that a significant portion of travel is concentrated in a relatively small number of markets in which it operates. One of those markets, which accounted for 22.2% of its revenue in 2025, is the United Kingdom.

a little bird

Last summer, Uber announced a plan to launch a premium robotaxi service using Lucid Gravity vehicles equipped with nuro’s Autonomous vehicle technology. This is more than a collaboration. Uber said it would invest $300 million in Lucid and separately purchase “at least” 20,000 of the electric vehicle maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Uber recently increased its investment in Lucid to $500 million and raised the vehicle order to 35,000.

Details about Uber’s investment in Nuro, a private Silicon Valley-based startup, have been scarce… until now. At the time, we only knew that Uber invested an undisclosed amount of “several hundred million dollars” in Nuro. A little bird has shared more details.

Uber’s total financial commitment to Nuro, which includes its participation in the startup’s Series E round last year and future milestone-based investments, is nearly $500 million, according to a source familiar with the deal.

My educated guess is that Nuro just unlocked one of those milestones. The company is testing Lucid vehicles in autonomous mode with a human safety operator in the driver’s seat. And last month it expanded testing to allow Uber employees to request an autonomous ride in a Lucid robotaxi with a human safety operator still on board. But the company just received two critical permits: a driverless test permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles and a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Do you have any advice for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

Offers!

AI Kodiak The first-quarter earnings offer a case study of how difficult it is to commercialize cutting-edge technology. The company announced a series of agreements that showed progress. He closed a business contract with Roehl; launched a pilot program to test Kodiak-equipped autonomous trucks at West Fraser Timber Co.’s log hauling operations in Alberta, Canada; and announced a collaboration with military vehicle manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems to create autonomous land vehicles for defense applications.

But investors were not happy with the terms of their Capital increase of 100 million dollars. The company sold shares for $6.50 each, a steep discount to the stock’s closing price of $9.10. The increase also included warrants, instruments that give investors the right to buy additional shares later at a fixed price, in this case as low as $6.

Funding came from existing sponsor Ares Management and several unnamed institutional investors.

Kodiak’s stock price fell 37% in after-hours trading after first-quarter financing and earnings were released. Shares have recovered a bit since then, perhaps because shareholders digested the news and looked at it from a glass-half-full perspective.

Kodiak will likely need more capital as it continues to burn cash while moving toward its big goal: driverless truck operations on public roads.

Other offers that caught my attention this week…

Energy of the momenta startup that has developed a novel approach to reusing electric vehicle batteries, proposed a Series B financing round of 40 million dollars led by Canadian venture capital firm Evok Innovations, with additional funding from grocery retailer fund W23, joining existing investors such as Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded venture capital firm.

rocosysa startup that has developed hands-free deposit solutions for autonomous electric vehicles, raised $13 million in an expanded Series A round led by Capricorn Partners, with participation from Scania Invest, Go ahead.OneSEB Greentech Venture Capital and Graduate Venture.

Notable readings and other tidbits

Aurora has begun transporting cargo in driverless trucks in Texas for distribution giant McLane. The commercial contract shows some progress by the autonomous truck company. Disclaimer: These driverless trucks still have human observers in the cabin and the company tells us they cannot operate the vehicle.

lucid First-quarter earnings revealed that one company is still feeling the effects of an issue with a supplier earlier this year that led it to recall its Gravity SUV and suspend deliveries. The company, which is also undergoing a leadership transition, changed its guidance and said it was no longer sure. How many electric vehicles will you build or sell this year?.

In 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated the New Car Assessment Program and added four new pass-fail tests to evaluate the Performance of advanced assistance systems.starting in 2026. And we are finally seeing the results. Post release 2026 tesla The Model Y is the first vehicle to meet the agency’s new benchmark.

Dismissal is launching a new line of color lidar sensors that CEO Angus Pacala he believes it will replace the cameras.

start-up of electric vehicles Board has lost a notable member of the board of directors. The head of Jeff Bezos’ family office left the boardaccording to numerous state documents reviewed by TechCrunch.

volkswagen it’s now rivian‘s largest shareholderdisplacing Amazon from first place.

One more thing…

Well, maybe two more.

senior reporter Rebeca Bellan interviewee Aurora founder and CEO Chris Urmson recently for the Equity podcast. Listen to the episode here.

And finally, we had a poll last week! Here’s what I posed to readers: “The California DMV issued new rules for autonomous vehicles. Self-driving trucks can now test and deploy in the state. Reporting, data collection and operations requirements have been expanded and authorities can issue traffic violations. These rules: go too far, miss the mark, or are not restrictive enough.”

Some 41% chose to “hit the mark”, while 27.6% said the rules go too far and 31% said they are not restrictive enough.

To participate in our surveys, Sign up to receive the Mobility newsletter in your inbox.!