The ink had hardly dried on Uber’s $200M acquisition of bike share firm Jump Bikes when its major competitor, Lyft, swooped on another bike share operator, Motivate.
The $250M deal, still being negotiated, confirms that some of the most disruptive forces in recent business history have set their eyes, and billions in cash, on bike transport.
Motivate operates some of the biggest bike share systems in the US, including New York, Chicago and Washington.
The penny dropped for Uber and Lyft when reports emerged from China that customers were switching to bike share because it was proving so much faster to grab a bike than take a ride service.
A key factor has been the recent deployment of ebikes in bike share fleets to attract a new class of customer—someone who is not really into bikes, but who simply wants to get somewhere in a hurry.
Media is reporting that Jump and Motivate were targets for takeover because they had long worked on establishing sound relationships with the municipalities where they operated.
This indicates that the major corporate players like Uber and Lyft want to steer well clear of the controversies and conflicts that have arisen with the recent arrival of dockless share bike operators that attempted to launch businesses using public places without the approval or cooperation of local government.