Ofo and Mobike, which invented the dockless bike-sharing market in China and are now on U.S. turf.

Mobike and ofo bikes lined up across the street from the old Beijing Railway Station near Tiananmen Square Evelyn Cheng | CNBC

A race to dominate the rapidly growing smart bike market is on: Pioneering, unicorn-financed Chinese start-ups Ofo and Mobike are facing off in the United States with pumped-up Silicon Valley-based rival LimeBike. Freshly loaded with $50 million more in investment and geared up to launch in 10 more U.S. cities this year, LimeBike is pedaling fast in the United States to pass China's Ofo and Mobike with their big ambitions and billion-dollar coffers from China power players Tencent and Alibaba. The United States is a new battleground for Ofo and Mobike, which invented and popularized the dockless bike-sharing market in China and have started to go international. Ofo kicked off operations in Seattle, Boston suburbs and Washington, D.C., in August, while Mobike launched in Washington, D.C., in September. Main U.S. competitor LimeBike kick-started its first U.S. market in June at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has quickly rolled out to 20 places. Bike-sharing is growing exponentially in the U.S. In 2016, riders took 28 million trips, on par with the annual ridership of the entire Amtrak system, the National Association of City Transportation Officials reported. The five biggest systems are in New York, Greater Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago and Greater Boston. Analysts predict the boom will continue as popularity increases. Sporting brightly colored bikes and logos — lime green for LimeBike, yellow canary for Ofo and bright orange and silver for Mobike — Chinese-style bike-sharing has arrived in America. The market winner will go to the first mover that can execute without bumping into numerous challenges that include regulations, pricing wars, maintenance issues, bike theft and vandalism.

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Faced with the supercharged Chinese foes entering U.S. turf, the San Mateo, Ca.-based LimeBike has just snared $50 million in investment on top of $12 million in March to speed up its roll-out to reach 30 cities and campuses nationwide this year. The funding comes from technology sector hedge fund Coatue Management, Templeton Investments, GGV Capital, Jerry Yang's AME Cloud Ventures, ex-Google Ventures Bill Maris' Section 32, Stanford StartX Fund in addition to its Series A investors including Silicon Valley venture investors Andreessen Horowitz and DCM.

"Local players understand the market better. We are opening one market every week and hiring a team of 10 to 20 people to support local operations, and working with city officials closely to launch new markets," said LimeBike's CEO and co-founder Toby Sun, a Berkeley MBA graduate and US-China venture investor at Fosun-backed Kinzon Capital with ex-Tencent US general manager Brad Bao. Growing an average 50 percent weekly, LimeBike has climbed to 250,000 users and 10,000 bikes nationwide in 12 American cities including Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Dallas, as well as eight university campuses. By year-end, LimeBike's ambitious goal is to top 1 million riders and add at least 50,000 more bikes and 10 new U.S. markets, among them possibly New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego and South Francisco. LimeBikes caught on quickly in key markets, such as Seattle, which logged 10,000 trips the first week, according to Sun. In 2018, if the U.S. roll-out goes as well as expected, LimeBike plans the next bold stage of growth: Go global. "LimeBike is taking the Chinese model of bike-sharing and localizing it for the U.S. market," said Connie Chan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a lead, early investor in LimeBike. "The team has worked in the U.S. for a number of years and knows what will work."

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