Uber and Lime
Not the good Corona & Lime combo... You used to see people with wind-swept hair cruising on Lime scooters, which littered sidewalks and street corners in flocks of neon green. Now, not so much. Lime has seen its business evaporate through the course of the pandemic — now it might be getting juiced by Uber:
Scooting my way DownRound... Money raised in a down round reduces a company's valuation because shares are offered at a lower price than they were in the previous funding round — it's kind of a desperate move, and Uber's squeezing it for what it's worth:
Consolidate or bust (in a buyer's market)... Despite its swift rise to unicorn-status, Lime was losing money even pre-corona. But the pandemic seems to have pushed it to the verge of bankruptcy — Uber's taking advantage of that desperation to consolidate the scooter market. With its core rides biz nearly non-existent right now, Uber isn't cruising itself. But if scooter/bike travel returns to life faster than ride-share, Uber will have way more control of the market.