Lime announced more big hiring news this morning with the appointment of Joe Kraus, a general partner at Alphabet’s venture arm GV and an existing member of the bike- and scooter-sharing startup’s board of directors, as its first chief operating officer.
Kraus joined GV 12 years ago from the Google-acquired software startup JotSpot, where he served as the chief executive officer from 2003 to 2006. Before that, he co-founded Excite, an early internet search engine.
Earlier this year, Kraus helped lead GV’s first investment in Lime. In joining the company’s C-suite, Kraus will relinquish his board seat to another GV partner, as well as his GP title at the firm. He will stay on as a venture partner and will keep his existing board seats, per Bloomberg. Kraus is also on the board of Peerspace, a marketplace for booking space for events, and fintech startup Spruce Finance, among others. In his tenure at GV, he’s backed startups including Modsy, ClassPass, KeepTruckin and HomeAway.
San Francisco-based Lime, valued at more than $1 billion, brought on former Uber chief business officer David Richter just last week as its first-ever chief business officer. The company is filling up its C-suite as it gears up to expand its portfolio of micro-mobility services into car-sharing.
More news will inevitably come from Lime soon as the company is said to be fundraising at a $3 billion valuation. Founded in 2017, the startup has raised a total of $467 million to date from GV, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Section 32, GGV Capital and more.
Among other projects in the works, Lime is planning a launch of brick-and-mortar scooter lifestyle stores in the U.S., beginning with Santa Monica, California, the headquarters of its biggest competitor, e-scooter startup Bird. Meanwhile, Lime, which has recorded 11.5 million rides as of September, is actively expanding in the U.S. and overseas.
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