Maybe scooters are... profitable?
Emailed on October 4th, 2019 in The Friday Forward
Speaking of scooters and rhetorical questions: Bird, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based e-scooter rental company, raised $275 million in Series D funding at a $2.5 billion pre-money valuation. CDPQ and return backer Sequoia Capital co-led the round.
Bird launched in 2017, got a $1 billion post-money price in mid-2018 and then a $2 billion post-money just six months later. This round comes at a sizable premium, albeit at a slower growth rate.
E-scooter economics initially cared about market share and regulation arbitrage, then folks found out that broken scooters led to poor unit-economics. It appeared the business model was fatally flawed, so the new focus is on scooter longevity, with Bird and its rivals working to develop more durable and tamper-proof vehicles.
Turns out, that's working.