image credit : Lime

E-scooter startup Lime has just completed its huge Series C round this time raising a total of $335 million which is higher than the previous aim of $250 million in a round led by Alphabet’s GV and also saw participation from ride-hailing firm Uber, Andressen Horowitz, notable tech investing Hedge Fund Coatue Management, Atomico, Fidelity and a host of others.

This funding round notably comes with a $1.1 Billion valuation for the company which makes it a fast newcomer to the Unicorn space along with e-scooter company Bird which just recently raised a $300 million round at a $2 Billion valuation.

Along with this investment, Uber will now work together with Lime to co-brand the company’s scooters whilst offering its scooter rides on its Uber service which will bring a very vast user base and integration for the 1 year old electric scooter and bike sharing startup. 

This investment boosts up the scooter and last mile transportation competition as several companies aim to grab a huge share of the market with different moves which includes Lyft’s recent acquisition of U.S. largest bike sharing operator Motivate, E-scooter sharing startup Spin’s targeted offering of security tokens worth $125 million to fund its operations along with Mobike’s recent initiative to stop the requirement of upfront deposits in order to boost up usage of its bike-sharing service.

These companies are making several moves to expand their operations while more users take to the use of Scooters for easy transportation, Lime currently operates across just over 60 cities and 18 states in the U.S. along with a presence in 5 European regions and many college campuses.

In a recently released statement by Lime regarding this investment, The company makes note of this investment which “adds to Uber’s vision of becoming a transportation platform for people around the globe.” Lime’s co-founders continued We are working to co-brand our scooters and make Lime available in the Uber app, with more news to follow. We could not be more thrilled about this partnership and what it brings to riders everywhere.”

GV’s notable investment partner Joe Kraus known for founding Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org while joining GV in 2009 three years after Google acquired Jotspot will now take a seat on Lime’s board as the company continues to grow and scale its operations.