Despite regulatory hurdles on a city-by-city basis, electric scooter companies and their respective services are continuing to make their way to markets all over the world. Earlier this week, for example, Lime announced its entrance into Madrid, launching hundreds of electric scooters in the Spanish capital. About a week before that, competitor Bird launched in […]
View More Electric scooters are going worldwideCategory: Bird
Lime is expanding its low-income program
Lime, the electric scooter and bike-share startup, is expanding its program for people with low incomes. Called Lime Access, the program enables people who qualify for state or federal assistance programs to access Lime’s fleet of vehicles at a discount. Lime first launched the program in May. At the time and up until now, it […]
View More Lime is expanding its low-income programBird’s electric scooters are going international
Electric scooter startup Bird, the one worth $2 billion, is going international. This does not come as a surprise given TechCrunch’s June report that Bird was looking to expand to Europe. Today, Bird is launching a pilot program in Paris to see how the electric scooter service operates in a city with more than two […]
View More Bird’s electric scooters are going internationalBird and Skip secure Portland e-scooter permits and there’s already drama
Electric scooter startups Bird and Skip have landed permits to operate in Portland under a new pilot program that aims to gauge how the controversial form of micro-transportation will fit in the city. And already there’s a bit of drama, or call it skeptical-scooter feelings, scuttling about. The permits issued by Portland Bureau of Transportation […]
View More Bird and Skip secure Portland e-scooter permits and there’s already dramaOfo shut down in many U.S. cities. Here’s what happens with all those bicycles.
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The bright yellow Ofo bicycles came into our country fast and furious last August, but after barely a year in the United States, the app-enabled bike share company announced it was downsizing its presence in more than 30 U.S. cities down to a handful.
But its 40,000 bicycles won’t go to waste. Already about 3,000 of its traditional pedal bikes will be donated to organizations in 10 different cities, and more cities will donate bicycles in the coming weeks.
“We want to make sure the bikes stay in the community and go to people who can use them,” Ofo spokesperson Tom Sarris said. “They’re not going to the scrap pile.” Read more…
More about Bird, Lime, Ofo, Bike Sharing, and Tech
With new tech coming online, cities need a department of urban testing
Shaun Abrahamson Contributor Shaun Abrahamson is a managing partner at Urban Us Ventures and serves on the Investment Committee at URBAN-X. More posts by this contributor How should startups work with city governments? The design and operation of cities is the province of urban planning. But an explosion of startups in cities means a lot […]
View More With new tech coming online, cities need a department of urban testingBird now offers discounts to people with low incomes
Bird, the scooter startup that has raised more than $400 million in funding, has introduced a program geared toward low-income people in order to increase access to transportation. Called One Bird, the program eliminates the $1 fee to unlock a Bird so that the rider just has to pay 15 cents per minute. “Everyone should […]
View More Bird now offers discounts to people with low incomesWith Lime teaming up Uber, can rival Bird afford to go it alone?
Yesterday, we learned that 18-month-old, Bay Area-based electric scooter rental company Lime is joining forces with the ride-hailing giant Uber, which is both investing in the company as part of a $335 million round and planning promote Lime in its mobile app. According to Bloomberg, Uber also plans to plaster its logo on Lime’s scooters. […]
View More With Lime teaming up Uber, can rival Bird afford to go it alone?Bird and Lyft raise $900M, a16z launches a crytpo fund, and $6B more for Sequoia
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Connie Loizos and I were joined by Norwest’s Scott Beechuk. Sadly, Matthew Lynley was reading slam poetry to ambivalent cacti in the Sonora Desert and thus couldn’t join us. He’ll be back soon, we promise. But […]
View More Bird and Lyft raise $900M, a16z launches a crytpo fund, and $6B more for SequoiaBird has officially raised a whopping $300M as the scooter wars heat up
And there we have it: Bird, one of the emerging massively-hyped Scooter startups, has roped in its next pile of funding by picking up another $300 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital. The company announced the long-anticipated round this morning, with Sequoia’s Roelof Botha joining the company’s board of directors. This is the […]
View More Bird has officially raised a whopping $300M as the scooter wars heat upAre scooter startups really worth billions?
It’s been hard to miss the scooter startup wars opening fresh, techno-fueled rifts in Valley society in recent months. Another flavor of ride-sharing steed which sprouted seemingly overnight to clutter up sidewalks — drawing rapid-fire ire from city regulators apparently far more forgiving of traffic congestion if it’s delivered in the traditional, car-shaped capsule. Even […]
View More Are scooter startups really worth billions?Nextdoor descends into chaos over e-scooter drama
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Is there any greater joy than petty internet forum arguments that escalate quickly? You’re right, what a silly question — of course there isn’t!
For months, the battle over dockless e-scooters has been playing out in city council meetings and legal spats across the country. Now, in cities such as San Francisco and Santa Monica, e-scooter companies like Bird and Lime are starting to come to some agreements with local governments — some with better deals than others.
But in the more personal, online neighborhood forum Nextdoor, the fight wages on — and it has gotten intense, personal, and downright dirty. Read more…
More about Bird, Forum, Lime, Neighborhoods, and Nextdoor
View More Nextdoor descends into chaos over e-scooter drama