TechCrunch Mobility: Lime’s IPO gamble

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After years of hints and preparation, the Uber-backed electric bike and scooter rental startup Lime filed for an initial public offering. A micromobility company going public? In 2026? Surely it’s the wrong year. 

Lime CEO Wayne Ting has been talking about an IPO for years. TechCrunch spoke to him about it in 2020, 2021, and 2023. It never materialized and I sort of forgot about it, until — boom — the S-1 doc, the registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, posted early Friday morning. 

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

Revenue is climbing, it has positive free cash flow, and net losses narrowed after 2023, although there has been a slight uptick 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 through its partnership with Uber, which allows customers to find and rent scooters and e-bikes through its app.

All of this suggests Lime is a growth company headed toward profitability. But there is one substantial headwind. Lime has about $1 billion in current liabilities, and about $675.8 million of that is due by the end of 2026. In all, about $846 million is due within 12 months. Lime does not have sufficient liquidity to pay that, according to its filing. Lime states it plainly in the S-1: If it can’t go public and raise the necessary capital, or change its debt agreements, it may not be able to continue operating as a business.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane, who likes digging through an S-1 as much as I do, spotted some other tidbits in the risk factors. Investment by cities in their public road infrastructure is a risk factor, according to the company. Lime specifically lists potholes, which made me chuckle and then nod in agreement. Potholes are not kind to shared scooters. 

Lime also warned that a significant portion of rides are concentrated in a relatively small number of markets in which it operates. One such market, which accounted for 22.2% of its revenue in 2025, is the U.K. 

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 would separately buy “at least” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Uber recently raised its investment in Lucid to $500 million and pushed the vehicle order to 35,000. 

The details about Uber’s investment in Nuro, a privately held startup based in Silicon Valley, have been slim — until now. At the time, we only knew that Uber invested an undisclosed “multi-hundred-million-dollar” amount into Nuro. One 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, per a source familiar with the deal. 

My educated guess is that Nuro just unlocked one of those milestones. The company is testing the 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 testing permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles and a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at [email protected].

Deals!

Kodiak AI’s first-quarter earnings offers a case study for how challenging it is to commercialize frontier tech. The company announced a number of deals that showed progress. It locked in a commercial 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 the military vehicle maker General Dynamics Land Systems to create autonomous ground vehicles for defense applications.

But investors were not happy with the terms of its $100 million capital raise. The company sold shares at $6.50 each — a steep discount from its closing share price of $9.10. The raise also included warrants — instruments that give investors the right to buy additional shares later at a set price, in this case as low as $6.

The financing came from existing backer Ares Management and several unnamed institutional investors.

Kodiak’s stock price fell 37% in after-hours trading moments after the financing and Q1 earnings were released. Shares have recovered a bit since, perhaps as 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 as it pushes toward its big goal: driverless trucking operations on public highways.

Other deals that got my attention this week …

Moment Energy, a startup that’s developed a novel approach to repurposing EV batteries, raised a $40 million Series B funding round led by Canadian VC firm Evok Innovations, with additional funding from grocery retailer fund W23, joining existing investors like Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and In-Q-Tel, the CIA-funded VC firm.

Rocsys, a startup that has developed hands-free depot solutions for autonomous electric vehicles, raised $13 million in an extended Series A round led by Capricorn Partners, with participation from Scania Invest, Forward.One, SEB Greentech Venture Capital, and Graduate Venture.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Aurora has started hauling loads in driverless trucks in Texas for distribution giant McLane. The commercial contract shows some progress by the self-driving trucks company. Disclaimer: These driverless trucks still have human observers in the cab, and the company tells us they cannot operate the vehicle. 

Lucid’s first-quarter earnings revealed a company still feeling the effects of a supplier issue earlier this year that caused it to recall its Gravity SUV and pause deliveries. The company, which is also going through a leadership transition, changed its guidance and said it was no longer sure how many EVs it will 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 assess the performance of advanced assistance systems, starting in 2026. And we’re finally seeing the results. The later-release 2026 Tesla Model Y is the first vehicle to meet the agency’s new benchmark.

Ouster is launching a new lineup of color lidar sensors that CEO Angus Pacala believes will replace cameras.

EV startup Slate has lost a notable board member. The head of Jeff Bezos’ family office left the board, according to numerous state filings reviewed by TechCrunch.

Volkswagen is now Rivian’s largest shareholder, pushing Amazon out of the top spot.

One more thing …

Well, maybe two more. 

Senior reporter Rebecca Bellan interviewed 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 was what I posed to readers: “The California DMV issued new rules for AVs. Self-driving trucks can now test and deploy in the state. Reporting, data collection, and operations requirements have been expanded and law enforcement can issue traffic violations. These rules: go too far, hit the mark, or aren’t restrictive enough.” 

About 41% picked “hit the mark,” while 27.6% said the rules go too far, and 31% said they aren’t restrictive enough.

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