Electric scooter company Bird announced Wednesday that it had filed for bankruptcy, another sign that the luster of this once-bustling part of personal transportation is beginning to fade.
To continue operations, the company said it has secured $25 million in financing from MidCap Financial, the commercial lending division of Apollo Global Management, and the company's second-lien lenders. Michael Washinushi, Bird's interim chief executive, will remain in office as the company pursues a turnaround plan that could include selling assets.
Bird, which is based in Miami, warned investors a year ago that without raising cash it may not be able to “continue as a business.”
Other startups in the industry have struggled. Micromobility.com, formerly known as Helbiz, was delisted from Nasdaq on Tuesday; and another rival, Tier Mobility, saw its third round of layoffs last month.
Bird, one of the fastest startups to reach a billion-dollar valuation and become a so-called unicorn, has long positioned itself as a partner in helping cities become more environmentally friendly. It was founded in 2017 and quickly expanded, driven by prominent Silicon Valley investors including Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. It raised more than half a billion in venture capital and went public in 2021 after merging with a shell company called a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company).
But Bird's losses were piling up, and the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in September. This came after the company admitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had been overstating its revenue for more than two years; Its founder, Travis VanderZanden, left the company in June.
Bird scooters are available in more than 350 cities, from Rome to San Francisco. (The company's Canadian and European operations are not part of the bankruptcy and will continue to operate as usual, according to Bird.)
In recent years, there have been numerous complaints about abandoned rental scooters clogging up sidewalks and parks. Paris banned e-scooter rentals this year, a first in a European capital, but still allows private e-scooters.