maybe rental scooters at scale with tracking are not really a great market innovation?
Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
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Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#12Didn't they just buy Spin?
They did[1]. Which makes me wonder if they'll all end up in junkyards, they're packed with batteries, and even RPis[2]...
1: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/19/bird-acquires-spin-scooter...
2: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-4bs-inside-sp...
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#13How do you go bankrupt as a company renting powered scooters, which are possibly the cheapest possible mode of transportation just above a Craigslist bike? Incredible
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#14Not a single word about revenue or profits, just about how much it was 'valued' at. A lot of VC money is just holding up Potemkin villages of 'innovation'.
Perhaps because most would assume that Bird never earned any profit.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BRDS/bird-global/n...
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1861449/000186144922...
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#15> The global shutdown of major cities in the Covid pandemic hit the scooter startup hard, forcing it to pull all of its scooters from US and European markets Why did something like COVID effect the use and "contactless" rental of scooters? Was this just collateral damage or did specific changes on laws/regulations cause the pull out?
Citbike in NYC, a bike share program, saw record usage during and post COVID.
If COVID really hurt Bird, what it might be indicating is that Bird's primary user was tourists rather than locals using it as a mode of transportation.
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#16Similar article on the same subject also discussed previously, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38706781
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#17How do you go bankrupt as a company renting powered scooters, which are possibly the cheapest possible mode of transportation just above a Craigslist bike? Incredible
Theft or other losses, cost of roving charging vans and personnel, etc.
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#18> The global shutdown of major cities in the Covid pandemic hit the scooter startup hard, forcing it to pull all of its scooters from US and European markets Why did something like COVID effect the use and "contactless" rental of scooters? Was this just collateral damage or did specific changes on laws/regulations cause the pull out?
I don't know about other locales, but here, in France, people weren't supposed to wander too far away from their homes. Basically, you were only allowed to go to work if you absolutely couldn't work from home – and many people were staying home because their businesses were shut down. You were not supposed to go visit a friend on the other side of town. "Non-essential" stores were closed, so no reason to go too far a…
It would be so rad if I could walk to the grocery - I'd get hit by a car for sure though :(
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#19Good riddance, they've made cities worse and more dangerous. Can't tell you how many times some idiot on a Bird scooter going down a sidewalk has almost hit me or my kids. I've also seen several wipeout when going over track tracks.
Re: Bird, once valued at $2.5B, just filed for bankruptcy
#20> The global shutdown of major cities in the Covid pandemic hit the scooter startup hard, forcing it to pull all of its scooters from US and European markets Why did something like COVID effect the use and "contactless" rental of scooters? Was this just collateral damage or did specific changes on laws/regulations cause the pull out?
It has nothing to do with COVID. The stock was trading at $250 a share in october 2021, and started to drop afterwards, way after vaccines and restrictions in US/EU. It's just some lame excuse like inflation last year, rates now, and whatever is going to hit the news tomorrow.