Lime reports first profitable year, tests the waters for IPO

Shared micromobility giant Lime said it has achieved full-year profitability on both an adjusted and unadjusted EBITDA basis, which would make it an outlier in an industry that has struggled to break even, much less turn a profit.

Lime reported adjusted EBITDA profitability of $15 million and unadjusted profitability of $4 million in 2022. The company said it adjusted for a one-time stock-based compensation expense, as well as “old depreciation that was embedded, which is less important than the future capex spend,” according to CEO Wayne Ting.

Lime did not share any other metrics like revenue or expenses, so TechCrunch was unable to confirm the company’s self-reported profits. The takeaway the company wants to impart, though, is clear: Lime has figured out how to make shared micromobility a sustainable business.

The company expects to achieve free cash flow positivity this year or next, and once the macroeconomic environment becomes more favorable, Lime will move to enter the public markets. When that happens, it’ll be because Lime wants to access the public markets, not because it needs to go public to raise money, said Ting.

A number of startups, including competitors Bird and Helbiz, have gone public over the past couple of years through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies. SPAC mergers sidestep the traditional IPO route and, as such, often have a hint of desperation about them — many startups choose the SPAC route because they’re struggling to raise funds privately.

“We were fortunate enough to raise over $500 million in 2021, so we came into 2022 with a very strong cash position,” said Ting. “Now we’re burning very little, and we have unlimited runway. We continue to invest in markets at a moment where a lot of our competitors are pulling back precisely because they can’t make money doing this.”

Over the past several months, almost every major micromobility company — including Bird, Spin, Tier, Helbiz, Voi and Superpedestrian — has laid off staff and exited unprofitable markets. Lime has somehow been able to avoid making similar headlines. In fact, Ting said 2022 was Lime’s best year. The company expanded into new markets, hit record gross bookings of $466 million and even hired 150 new full-time employees.

“2022 was a hard year for many people, but it’s actually good for the strong players,” said Ting. “This is a year where if you can’t make your business work, you’ve got to start shrinking because there’s not free money on the other side.”

Ting said that in the “good years” of the tech boom, businesses obscured their operational weaknesses by consistently calling on the VC lifeline to raise more money. In today’s tighter market, those inefficiencies are becoming glaringly obvious.