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Micromobility

Bird

Shut down · 2023

Dockless e-scooter pioneer that reached a $2.5 billion valuation and popularized an entire transportation category, then collapsed under losses, an accounting scandal, and bankruptcy.

Santa Monica, USA2017–2023

Key metrics

$1.1B

Total funding

$2.5B

Peak valuation

4

Funding rounds

Outcome

Shut down

Operations ended in 2023.

Bird Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2023, wiping out shareholder equity; its operating scooter business was reorganized and sold in 2024 to a new private parent company, Third Lane Mobility, which also acquired competitor Spin.

2023

Financial trajectory

Funding by round

$756M$504M$252M$0$300M2018Growth funding$675M2019Funding$160M2021SPAC merger PIPE

The Story

Founded

Growth funding

$300M

Growth funding

$400M

Series D

$275M

SPAC merger PIPE

$160M

Shut down

What worked

Bird effectively created and popularized the dockless e-scooter category, reaching a $1 billion valuation faster than almost any startup up to that point and proving there was large, genuine consumer demand for short-distance rentals in cities worldwide — a category that Lime, Spin, and eventually major automakers and transit agencies all followed Bird into.

What didn't work

  1. 01

    Bird's growth-at-all-costs expansion into dozens of cities produced enormous losses

    $235 million in 2021 and $471 million in 2022 — that scooter ride revenue never came close to covering, and in November 2022 the company disclosed it had been overstating its revenue in prior financial reports.

  2. 02

    Its stock, which had gone public via SPAC merger in 2021 at a value of roughly $2.3 billion, collapsed to a market cap of about $70 million within a year as ride volumes fell, cities restricted or banned scooters over safety concerns

  3. 03

    The company faced more than 100 personal-injury lawsuits.

  4. 04

    Founder Travis VanderZanden departed in mid-2022, and after a final $30 million capital infusion from Bird Canada failed to change the company's trajectory, Bird Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2023.

CAC Too HighFraud / Ethics ViolationOverexpansion

THE VENTURE TRAIL TAKE

Growth-at-all-costs expansion across dozens of cities can outrun unit economics so badly that even a public listing can't hide it once usage turns down and the losses come due.

Read the full postmortem

Company details

Business model
On-Demand Service
Founded
2017
Headquarters
Santa Monica, USA
Funding rounds
4
Investors
Sequoia Capital · Index Ventures · Accel · CRV · Fidelity
Peak valuation
$2.5B

Founder

Travis VanderZanden
Founder & CEO; former Lyft COO and Uber VP of Growth, departed the company in June 2022

Sources

  1. 01CBS NewsBird files for bankruptcy
  2. 02Smart Cities DiveBird reorganizes into new company as it emerges from bankruptcy
  3. 03TechCrunchBird bankruptcy coverage
  4. 04QuartzBird, the bankrupt scootershare unicorn, owes money to more...

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