[JumpCrisscross]

> is that enough to justify a $2B valuation for a scooter-sharing startup?

For a 5% earnings yield, they would eventually need $100 million in income. There are probably $100 million in profits in New York and San Francisco alone. So yes, if this works that valuation seems appropriate.

[skookum]

>There are probably $100 million in profits in New York and San Francisco alone.

If we extend "San Francisco" to mean "Bay Area" and estimate that New York + Bay Area have a population of about 16M then if the company manages to get 5% of locals to become regular riders, $100M in annual profit is over $10 per regular rider per month. Assuming sufficient demand is there, consider the number of scooters that would need to be deployed and maintained to provided sufficient density to service this adoption level. Does that $100M in profit still seem probable in these two metros?

[notahacker]

$100m profits in SF sounds optimistic. London's heavily subsidised cycle share scheme, for example, gets a little over 1m rides in peak months even with most of those rides being free.

[Grue3]

If this is a profitable scheme (I don't think it is because of charging and theft issues), the competitors will move into the market as well (there is no moat). In big cities the market will be very segmented so they won't be able to reap all the profits, and the margins will be very thin due to intense competition.

[gaius]

A 5% yield is only reasonable for low-risk blue-chip equities. No one will settle for 5% with that much risk to their capital.

[JumpCrisscross]

> A 5% yield is only reasonable for low-risk blue-chip equities

Emphasis on “eventually”. A basic test for valuation sanity is “are the earnings this company would need for a zero-growth valuation possible?”

[rs86]

Oh yeah. They should bring way more profit home....