E-Scooter Sharing All the Craze in 2018

​2018 was the year of the electric scooter. Four-letter e-scooter brands such as Lime, Bird, Spin and Skip have become the attention-getters of the venture world. So far, these four raised a total of $1.02 billion in venture funding this year – $455.7 million for Lime, $415 million for Bird, $18.2 million for Jump, and $131 million for Skip. Established transportation companies are also getting involved in the craze. Jump Bikes, a bike- and scooter-sharing service, was bought by Uber for $250 million in April, and Spin was acquired by Ford for $100 million in November. Lime is even in partnership with Uber to offer scooters through the Uber app. 

According to valuation estimates from Pitchbook and TechCrunch, Bird is the most valuable of the e-scooter players at around $2 billion and is offered in 75 U.S. cities and 18 universities. Lime is offered in 127 cities and was last valued at $1.85 billion. However, these firms have been running into some regulatory hurdles with municipalities. When Lime and Bird first began entering cities, regulations weren’t in place to control the scooters, which can go as fast as 15 miles per hour. In some states, the scooters are classified as motor vehicles, meaning they require titles, insurance and inspections. Some cities, such as Athens, Georgia, are taking a harder stance, impounding 1,206 of Bird’s scooters after the company introduced them without permission.
 
While the market for e-scooters is surging, consumers are also making direct purchases for their own e-scooters. According to Ninebot-Segway, one of the globe’s largest e-scooter makers, sales climbed from around 200,000 in 2017 to over one million in 2018, with about half of those sales going directly to consumers. In fact, a vice-president of business development at Ninebot believes that the scooter-sharing model is unsustainable, as the companies meet regulatory challenges and increased competition. Increased consumer demand for the scooters themselves could also push out the providers of scooter-sharing services.