Bird went public at $2.3B — bankrupt 25 months later, each ride lost money

Bird launched dockless electric scooters in Santa Monica in 2017 and became the fastest company in history to reach a $1 billion valuation. The model was simple: drop scooters on sidewalks, let riders unlock them with an app, charge by the minute. Cities hated it. Riders loved it. Investors poured in money.

Bird went public via SPAC in November 2021 at a valuation of about $2.3 billion, raising $414 million. The filing revealed what the growth had concealed: the company had never been profitable. Each ride cost more to operate than it generated in revenue, once charging, maintenance, rebalancing and vehicle replacement were counted. A scooter's useful life was short — months, not years — and the capital cost of replacing them ate the margin on every trip.

Ride volumes fell 36% year-over-year. Bird was delisted from the NYSE. On 20 December 2023, twenty-five months after its SPAC debut, Bird filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of Florida. The company that had been worth $2.3 billion was liquidated. The unit economics that investors had deferred in 2018 turned out to be the whole story.