E-scooter rental company Bird files for bankruptcy, Bird Canada not impacted

E-scooter rental company Bird has filed for bankruptcy, though the move won’t impact Bird Canada or Bird Europe since they’re separate organizations.

The move comes after a tumultuous few years for the company. Bird went public in 2021 via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) with an implied valuation of $2.3 billion USD (roughly $3.06 billion CAD). However, the company’s stock cratered in under a year and Bird was forced to delist from the New York Stock Exchange in 2023 due to its low valuation. Bird also reportedly laid off almost a quarter of its staff in 2022.

According to The Wall Street Journal, existing lenders agreed to purchase assets and keep the company afloat through a $25 million USD (about $33.3 million CAD) loan from Apollo Global Management and second-lien lenders.

The company reportedly will continue operating as normal during the restructuring, with the company claiming in a release that it has “sufficient liquidity to meet financial obligations to city partners, vendors, suppliers, and employees during and after the restructuring process.”

Bird has launched its e-scooter rental program in several cities, including various Canadian cities through Bird Canada. E-scooter rental was once a much-hyped potential solution for sustainable urban mobility, but the system has struggled with profitability so far. Moreover, some cities have started taking stances against e-scooters over safety concerns and frustrations about scooters haphazardly strewn across sidewalks.

There’s also the ongoing question of city infrastructure, which remains hostile to non-car transport in many places. Without space for people to use alternate modes of transit to safely bike/scoot/walk/whatever other mobility solution they want to use, people will likely keep driving instead.

Source: Bird Via: The Wall Street Journal, Engadget