Toby Sun is the co-founder and CEO at Lime. He is an entrepreneur, marketer and investor. He is also a bike enthusiast, passionate to revolutionize urban mobility and solve the first and mile transportation challenges. He had 3 past jobs such as PepsiCo, Deloitte and Fosun RZ Capital. He also speaks Cantonese, Chinese and English.
Education
Toby Sun studied at Sun Yat-sen University taking up Bachelor in Public Policy from 2001-2005 in Guangdong, People’s Republic of China. In 2011-2013, he took Master of Business Administration in University of California, Berkeley – Walter A. Haas School of Business. He was the co-president in Haas Asia Business Club and a Berkeley MBA Admission outreach committee during his college days.
Career
From 2005-2011, he worked at PepsiCo as a Marketing Manager. He launched Gatorade in international markets, making it the market leader in 11 months in China. He managed new product innovation and marketing campaigns for 7UP and Pepsi Cola. He was also one of the fastest promoted employees in the history of PepsiCo as he got awarded 5 times in 6 years.
In 2013-2014, he was a Senior Consultant in Deloitte Consulting LLP. He was into monitoring Deloitte strategy service line, and strategy and operation. In September 2014 – January 2017, he worked as an Investment Director in Fosun RZ Capital in San Francisco Bay Area.
LimeBike
Neutron Holdings, Inc. is doing business under the name Lime formerly known as LimeBike. It is a transportation-rental company that is based in the United States. It runs scooter, bicycle and car-sharing systems in various cities globally. The Lime’ systems offer dockless vehicles, which users find and unlock via a mobile app. It charges start at $1 to unlock scooters and 15 cents per minute in the US, while $1/1€ for a 30-minute ride on unpowered bicycles.
LimeBike was founded in 2017 of January, together with Brad Bao, and raised $12 million in March in venture funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company launched in June with 125 bicycles in their first location in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In July, the company expanded to the cities in Key Biscayne, Florida, South Bend, Indiana, and South Lake Tahoe, California. LimeBike launched 500 bicycles in Seattle, Washington, becoming the city’s second bike share operator. In October, the company closed a Series B round of venture funding, announcing that it was valued at $225 million. In November, the company announced NFL running back Marshawn Lynch as one of its brand promoters, partnering with his company Beast Mode Apparel.
In 2018, a $335 million funding round that led to a valuation of $1.1 billion for the company, making it a Unicorn. In May, they rebrand it as “Lime” and partner with Segway to produce new scooters. In August, they signed a deal with Uber to provide them electric bikes for the expansion of their Uber Bikes service.
Vehicles and Deployment
Lime uses green-colored commuter bikes, equipped with 3G connectivity and with GPS units. These bicycles also have a solar panel, a front basket, and a smart lock. These bikes used a mobile app to locate nearby bicycles and scan a QR code to unlock bicycles, which play a short chime.
Lime had 150,000 users as of October 2017. The company announced at CES 2018 that they would begin a trail of electric bikes, branded Lime-E in San Francisco in January 2018. The following month, Lime-s electric scooters were introduced. In May, they announced plans to begin development of transit pods, small self-driving electric vehicles. In October, they applied for car-sharing permits in Seattle and later launched a service with a fleet of Fiat 500 Lounge cars branded as “LimePod”. In October 2018, the company announced the release of a new model e-scooter with larger wheels, a built-in suspension and aluminum frame to combat vandalism and extend vehicle life.
Lime aims to revolutionize urban mobility and empower people with more affordable, efficient and sustainable transportation options. As a multi-modal platform, their products such as e-bike, smart e-scooter, and bike sharing service, making the first and last mile faster, healthier and cheaper. No more hunting for a distant docking station.