I'm struggling to grasp the relevance also. In NYC, you'll have Subway sandwich flyers and comedy club flyers thrown your way also, but I don't think those have anything to do with VC. Why do bikes rentals strike you as a "VC cash burn?"
Clearly my radar needs updating
If it's the latter, I can understand why you thought they were VC-backed startups.
You mean the ones that have "CITI BIKE" plastered all across each bike and every station? hmm, I wonder what company could be behind that? Citi? naahh, probably a VC...
wat?
No these are no the citi sponsored rent a bikes. They are (seemingly) tourist focused rentals, with a large street presence and in one case I tracked down renting or owning large retail units one street down from central park (hence my "cannot work oit the economics" - I mean renting a retail space a stones throw from Central Park as a bike storage place, seems a stretch for any profit)