New $150 million funding round may make this Bird a unicorn The race to release dockless electric scooters onto the streets of U.S. cities may be accelerating.
According to Bloomberg, Bird, the Los Angeles-based dockless electric scooter startup, is embarking on another multimillion-dollar funding round which would value the company at $1 billion dollars. For comparison, Airbnb, valued at roughly $31 billion today, took nearly three years to earn a billion-dollar valuation, a distinction so rare that companies with billion-dollar valuations are nicknamed unicorns.
The potential valuation shows just how competitive the market for this new transit option has become, and how venture-backed rivals are scrambling to scale so they can stay ahead of city regulations. Bird, which is headquartered in the Venice neighborhood of LA, launched its app-based scooter system in September and has quickly expanded across the westside of Los Angeles, as well as into a handful of additional cities. According to founder Travis VanderZanden, who has spent several years at transportation tech companies, first as COO of Lyft and then as VP of driver growth for Uber, Bird plans to be in 50 cities by the end of 2018.
Competitors have scrambled to add scooters to new markets, and investors have encouraged them with sizable investments. Previous to today?s announcement, the biggest three companies?Bird, LimeBike, and Spin?had more than $200 million in venture capital funding and aggressive expa...