When your bird is broken
Will it bring you down? — The Beatles
Known mostly because people hated seeing their scooters cast about city streets, the once prolific Bird has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The rental e-scooter market seems to be collapsing, and communities are kicking the providers out. It is unsurprising their SPAC led public offering was also a dud.
Bird has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, capping off a turbulent year for the electric scooter company.
In a press release today, Bird confirmed that it had entered into a "financial restructuring process aimed at strengthening its balance sheet," with the company continuing to operate as normal in pursuit of "long-term, sustainable growth."
Founded in 2017 by former Lyft and Uber executive Travis VanderZanden, Bird is one of numerous startups to introduce dockless micromobility platforms around the world, allowing city-dwellers to pay for short-term access to electric scooters or bikes. The company went public in late 2021 via a SPAC merger, but in a crowded market built on questionable economics, its stock went into a perennial nosedive, with its market cap dropping from more than $2 billion at its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut to just $70 million 12 months later. This decline led the NYSE to issue a warning that Bird's share price was too low.
Small, personal electric transportation will likely displace more gasoline combustion-based transit than electric cars for moving about locally. Some communities are selecting e-transport partners who manage bikes and scooters for free or affordable local use, and the cost of ownership of e-bikes is getting close to just a regular bike.
