Scooter Startup Bird Acquires Germany’s Circ, Raises $75 Million
Scooter Startup Bird Acquires Germany’s Circ, Raises $75 Million
(Bloomberg) -- Fewer people rent scooters in the winter. Bird Rides Inc., one of the world’s largest providers of electric scooter rentals, is using the time to prep for expansion.
The Santa Monica, California-based company said Monday it’s acquiring Circ, a German rival, for an undisclosed sum. Bird also said it raised an additional $75 million from investors on top of the $275 million round disclosed in October. The funding round valued the business at about $2.5 billion.
As a result of the acquisition, Bird will add more than 300 employees in Europe, helping it inch closer in the region to U.S.-based competitor Lime. Travis VanderZanden, Bird’s chief executive officer, has said he’s focused on getting the company closer to breaking even on its scooter business and suggests that Circ’s team can help. “We like their laser focus on treating cities as their No. 1 customer and their mindset of prioritizing profitability over growth,” VanderZanden said in an emailed statement.
Founded in 2017, Bird became one of the youngest startups ever to reach unicorn status with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. It expanded aggressively by hiring in the U.S. and abroad, developing custom scooters and acquiring companies, including a San Francisco startup called Scoot in June.
But investors’ excitement for scooters has cooled recently. In November, Lyft Inc. said it was pulling scooters from six cities and dismissing staff to focus on other markets. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Richard Corbett, the head of U.K. and Ireland for Bird, was leaving. Since launching in London in 2018, Bird has struggled to deploy its scooters there as a result of tight regulation. Corbett said lawmakers’ focus on Brexit hampered the company’s ability to secure approvals.
To contact the reporter on this story: Candy Cheng in San Francisco at ccheng86@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz
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