Scooter Startup Lime Has Put One Foot Out Of Singapore

You won’t see Lime scooters in Singapore, its Asia-Pacific headquarters. The Uber-backed scooter startup is withdrawing its application to run shared personal mobility services in the country over the short term, the company said in a statement.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

This news also comes months after Uber partly left Singapore by selling its local business to Grab.

“Lime has decided to reprioritize our efforts to meet the fast growing and strong demand for micromobilty around the globe,” said Wayne Ting, the global head of operations and strategy at Lime, in a statement sent to Crunchbase News.

A sandbox license would have given Lime the ability to pilot programs for its e-scooter business. By withdrawing the application for this license, it means we won’t see scooters from the company in that market.

Lime previously picked Singapore as the ideal location for its Asia-Pacific headquarters, citing economic growth and a high adoption rate of mobility devices. So Lime’s physical presence, despite abandoning the market, will continue through its corporate team.

Lime said its commitment in Singapore is “unwavering.”

Lime’s journey may have started in San Francisco with a bang followed by a sputter, but its growth on many fronts has been impressive. Lime has secured $765 million in known funding. To compare, Singapore’s local scooter startup Beam has secured $6.4 million in known funding, according to Crunchbase data. Beam recently launched in Malaysia, although it has not yet piloted scooters within Singapore.

Beam’s Christopher Hilton, vice president of corporate affairs, told Crunchbase News that the company is committed to Singapore, and is working toward all requirements to secure a public sandbox license so it can pilot its scooters. It expects a “positive outcome soon.”

“Beam is excited about Singapore and are confident that it will be a dynamic, safe and innovative market for e-scooter sharing services,” he added in a statement.

Lime’s Ting told Crunchbase News in a statement that “the exponential growth of our business requires us to prioritize our expansion efforts to ensure that we continue to deliver the best possible experience for our riders and just as importantly for the cities in which we serve.”

Earlier scooter news this week told us that Bird, another popular scooter startup, will raise a round valuing the firm comfortably above $2 billion. And last month, scooter startup Bird bought scooter startup Scoot. Lime itself raised $310 million in venture capital earlier this year.

It all comes to show that scooters are booming, consolidating, and now, reprioritizing.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article stated that Bird bought Skip. Bird bought Scoot. A correction has been made to reflect this change.