Lyft Urban Solutions has announced plans to acquire Serveo’s bike share business in Spain this year in a deal that would majorly deepen the micromobility operator’s presence across the Atlantic.
Today, Lyft Urban Solutions operates six bike share systems in North America including NYC’s Citi Bike which is the largest system on the continent. The operator, which is the micromobility division of the U.S. ridesharing giant Lyft, also supplies technology and hardware to 55 systems across 14 countries, 18 programmes of which are in Europe.
Subject to customary closing conditions, the deal would mark the first time that Lyft Urban Solutions operates bike share on both sides of the Atlantic, while taking its existing relationship with Serveo to the next level. Lyft did not disclose the value of the deal when requested by Zag Daily.
“Lyft Urban Solutions has built the operational depth and technology platform behind some of the largest bike share systems in the world,” said Michael Brous, Head of Lyft Urban Solutions. “For years, we’ve watched Serveo build something just as impressive: world-class bike share programmes that Spanish cities depend on every day, including Bicing in Barcelona – one of Europe’s biggest and most-used programmes.
“Now we will get to unite those two strengths together, offering city partners something more than the sum of our parts.”
In addition to the Bicing system, which is set to grow by 50% to 12,000 bikes based on an electoral promise from Barcelona’s Mayor Jaume Collboni, Seveo operates bike share systems in Bilbao, Valladolid and Zaragoza. The company also provides the contract management and local support for Madrid, La Coruña and Rivas-Vaciamadrid’s systems.
Lyft told Zag Daily that riders should expect no disruption to the service as the same local teams will continue to run the systems with riders able to access them without switching apps or re-registering.
For the last seven years, Lyft Urban Solutions has acted as Serveo’s exclusive technology and hardware partner. The company said that the acquisition would not change this, with Lyft to continue providing the technology and hardware across all of these programmes.
“The Serveo team brings proven scale and expertise to this next chapter – more than 22,000 shared bicycles managed across seven Spanish cities powered by effort, commitment and professionalism,” said Salvador Urquía, CEO of Serveo. “We’re proud of what we’ve built and the team is excited to begin this new phase united with a leading partner in the sector.”
According to Lyft, the transaction is not expected to have a “material impact” on its financial results. It will, however, mark a new phase of global operations for the company, deepening its role in a current network of 195,000 bikes and 15,000 stations spread across North America, South America, Europe and Asia.
