Transportation Weekly: Waymo unleashes laser bear, Bird spreads its wings, Lyft tightens its belt

Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch . This is the fifth edition of our newsletter and we love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Catch up here, here and here. As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow […]

View More Transportation Weekly: Waymo unleashes laser bear, Bird spreads its wings, Lyft tightens its belt

Bird launches platform to let entrepreneurs manage their own fleet of scooters

Bird is launching its new program, Bird Platform, in New Zealand, Canada and Latin America in the coming weeks. First up is New Zealand, where Bird has partnered with a local entrepreneur to manage a fleet of Bird electric scooters. Residents of New Zealand will start to see Bird scooters on the streets next week. […]

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Bird expands to San Francisco, San Jose and Washington

The smash dockless scooter rental startup, Bird, is expanding beyond its Southern California nest with a new rollout in San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. and Washington, DC, the company said today. And as his company makes its migration across the country, Bird chief executive Travis VanderZanden is determined not to make the same mistakes that […]

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Bird is raising $100 million to become the Uber of electric scooters

 “It feels like investing in Uber when it first launched.”
That’s what one investor said of the hot new Santa Monica, Calif.-based startup, Bird — an electric scooter company that’s now in the process of raising as much as $100 million on a $300 million valuation, according to several people with knowledge of the company’s plans.
Bird, which has become a… Read More

View More Bird is raising $100 million to become the Uber of electric scooters

This former Uber (and Lyft) exec just raised $15 million for his controversial e-scooter startup: Bird

Travis VanderZanden. If you’ve been following the fast-changing transportation industry, it’s a name that may sound familiar. Until September 2016, VanderZanden was VP of growth at Uber and before that, COO of its fierce rival Lyft, which had acquired his on-demand car wash company, Cherry, in 2013. It was a dramatic few years for VanderZanden, once he joined the ride-hailing race.… Read More

View More This former Uber (and Lyft) exec just raised $15 million for his controversial e-scooter startup: Bird