Yet it seemed clear by then that it was a two-bike race—a configuration typical of China’s feverish entrepreneurial battles. That same summer, Ofo, started by students at the elite Peking University in 2014, wheeled its dockless, buttercup-yellow bikes onto the Tibetan plateau, making Lhasa its 100th city. Its main competitor, Mobike , raised over $600m, the largest single dollop of funding in bike-sharing anywhere, in a round led by Tencent, a social-media giant.
What went wrong? To observers of China’s tech-economy contests, the bike-sharing sprint seemed to fit a pattern. Big spending by Ofo and Mobike fuelled a turf war that colonised cities with their bikes, seducing venture-capital firms. A half-hour ride costs just 1 yuan, or 15 cents. The model quickly won users. The business was loss-making, depressed by a subsidy war, but this has been the case for ride-hailing and food-delivery apps, too.
Hubris and overreach were evident, especially at Ofo. It raised seven rounds of funding in the space of 18 months, receiving $2.2bn in total. Local media cited insiders who said Ofo had more money than it knew what to do with. It was said to have spent 10m yuan for Lu Han, a Chinese pop star, to promote its bikes.
WOW! Scrap metal...Send then to Africa ...a kid do with a bike ..
paullicino look at that dog
Kate_McClymont Could have told them this wouldn’t work when it was first considered, what with human nature and all.
Alas, I wish I could read it but it's locked.