Lyft Has Agreed to Buy Motivate, a Bike Sharing Company
Checkmate, Uber.
According to The Information, Lyft has agreed to buy Motivate, which runs some of the biggest U.S. bike-share programs, according to two people briefed about the deal. The acquisition, which is likely to be worth $250 million or more, will quickly insert Lyft into the small but fast-growing U.S. bike-sharing market.
Lyft declined to comment and Motivate wasn’t available for comment. This deal would put Lyft ahead of Uber in terms of bike sharing.
You may or may not know about Motivate, but you’ve probably seen their Citi bikes, and Ford GObikes around the city. Motivate has the largest bike-share program in the U.S. with partnerships in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities. Its brand isn’t well known since it typically yields the name of its programs in each city to corporate sponsors.
In April, Motivate deployed electric bikes in San Francisco. Once JUMP’s 18-month pilot program with the city is up next June, we can expect to see companies like Motivate, Lime and Scoot apply to deploy their own dockless bikes in the city.
The Information also reported last month that Lyft is pursuing rentals of dock-less electric scooters in San Francisco, and it is talking to the Chinese company that manufactures the scooters for Bird, Lime and Spin.
According to research firm Apptopia, the company’s bikeshare apps are currently quite a bit more popular than Uber’s Jump, with nearly twice as many people using the Citi Bike app as the Jump app on a daily basis. If you add Motivate’s other brands, Apptopia says the company averages 150,000 daily active users.
