Lyft acquires Motivate, parent company of Citi Bike

As part of the agreement, Lyft is acquiring Motivate’s technology and corporate functions, including its city contracts. Motivate’s bike maintenance and servicing operations will remain a standalone business, retaining the Motivate name, while the rest of the business will be renamed ‘Lyft Bikes.’

Motivate operates a number of bikeshare systems in North America, including New York’s Citi Bike, San Francisco’s Ford GoBike, Chicago’s Divvy, Boston’s Blue Bikes, DC’s Capital Bikeshare, and Portland’s Biketown. According to Lyft, 80% of bikeshare trips in the US were on Motivate-operated systems last year.

“Lyft and Motivate have both been committed for years to the same goal of reducing the need for personal car ownership by providing reliable and affordable ways to move around our cities,” said John Zimmer, Lyft co-founder and president, in a statement. “Bringing together Lyft and Motivate will accelerate our collaboration with cities and deliver even better experiences to our passengers and riders.”

The acquisition is also part of Lyft’s Green Cities Initiative, which it launched earlier this year in an effort to offset carbon emissions from all its rides globally. As part of the initiative, Lyft plans to offset more than a million metric tons of carbon, which the rideshare company says is the “equivalent to planting tens of millions of trees or taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road.”