In July 2018, Lyft acquired Motivate, the largest bikeshare operator in the U.S. and the parent company of Ford GoBike and Citi Bike. Lyft reportedly paid approximately $250 million for the company.
“With a track record of more than 75 million rides and a growing fleet of more than 12,000 shared bikes, the Citi Bike system is a key reason we chose to acquire Motivate and become North America’s largest bikeshare operator. Making it easy for all Lyft users to access bikeshare will open up a world of possibilities and, we hope, get many more people riding Citi Bike,” the company wrote in a blog post in April.
Lyft initially ran beta-testing of Citi Bike in its app for about 20 percent of its users, before making it available to everyone with the Lyft app on their smartphone. The company is also investing $100 million to expand Citi Bike from 12,000 bikes to 40,000, which will make it one of the largest bikeshare systems in the world. In fact, Lyft said it expects ridership to “increase significantly” as a result of the full integration, according to Venture Beat.
Earlier this week Lyft was hit with a class action lawsuit, with investors accusing the company of making misleading and false statements about its business in its IPO filing, which drove the stock higher. Lyft reportedly didn’t disclose known safety issues with its bicycle rideshare program. The lawsuit contends Lyft didn’t disclose that more than 1,000 of the bicycles in its rideshare program had safety issues that would result in recalls. The investors also contend Lyft overinflated its market share in its IPO filing.
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