Latham & Watkins and Davis Polk are steering electric bike company Lime on its initial public offering on the NASDAQ, with the Uber-backed company hoping to list with a reported valuation of $2bn.
Latham is advising Neutron Holdings, Lime’s parent company, with a team led by Bay Area partnersTad Freese and Sarah Axtell.
Davis Polk is acting as counsel to the eight underwriters, including Jeffries and Goldman, with a team led by Northern California corporate partners Alan Denenberg and Beth LeBow.
Neutron Holdings filed its intention to list late last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, with the Financial Times subsequently reporting the value of the listing.
Freese was previously vice chair of Latham’s corporate department and managing partner of the Bay Area office, and is a Legal 500 leading partner for large M&A deals. In 2020 he led the Latham team that advised Airbnb on its IPO, valued at $3.4bn at the time. More recently, the firm advised home security company Verisure on its €13.7bn listing on NASDAQ Stockholm – the largest European private equity-backed IPO.
Denenberg, who has been at Davis Polk for 25 years, has worked on over 75 IPOs over the past decade, and has advised underwriters across industries such as life sciences, industrials and technology. He is a Legal 500 leading partner for capital markets: equity offerings.
Lime was founded in San Francisco in 2017 and has been growing in popularity across urban centres. The company currently operates in around 230 cities, launching in 19 new metropolitan hubs in 2025. In the most recent financial year, Lime’s revenue grew 29% to $886.7m.
In May 2020 the company completed a $170m investment round with a significant stake contributed by Uber, as well as support from Alphabet and Bain. Goodwin advised Lime with Anthony McCusker, now the firm’s chair, acting as one of the lead partners on the matter. Lime is currently led by CEO Wayne Ting, a former executive at Uber.
Sarah Axtell, second lead partner for Latham on the IPO, was a partner at Goodwin at the time of the deal, moving to Latham in November 2020, though she is not listed among the partners who worked on the deal.
