My guess is that Lime and Bird's latest investors don't actually believe in these insane valuations. Instead, they see these companies as a safe place to park their money due to the limited downside provided by liquid preference terms.
Also worth noting, none of the technology is itself "new", but rather bird & lime particularly have packaged existing technologies together to make a product with all the qualities mentioned above. Innovation is usually just a twist on something that's already out there.
I love these scooters BTW, super convenient!
Disruptive pioneer is not necessarily good investment even if the base idea is solid.
In the Dot-com bubble (1995-2000) many companies with good ideas eventually failed. There were several online book retailers, web search companies and online shopping sites, even online food delivery services. They were highly valued, but most of them went bankrupt. Amazon two Google survived (It took over decade for Amazon's stock valuation to recover).
We have now transportation boom. When the boom goes bust and regression hits, most run out of money and go bankrupt.
Softbank isn't like a traditional VC. They structured their fund like private equity where they retain a percentage of returns above x% per year. In addition to this, they take a 1% management fee regardless of returns.
For most VC's, you'd expect the carry to represent the majority of incentive. But, Softbank is unique in that their fund is $100bn. They take home a hefty $1b in management fees regardless of how their portfolio performs.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they make 'safe' bets for the sake of boosting their allocation numbers, even if they think there's a nil chance of 3x EV.
Perhaps Softbank funds the next rounds, but GV and Sequoia are still going to be looking for a much bigger exit than 1x.