🏦 Bird Goes Public, Lime’s Close Behind

Plus, Biden signs $1.2T infrastructure bill, biking is missing at COP26, and an airline and a scooter startup form an unlikely alliance.

November 09, 2021

Big thanks for reading the Micromobility Newsletter. Let’s dive in.

Coming Attractions

ICYMI: Last month our co-founder Horace Dediu, coiner of the term “micromobility,” set forth his ten commandments for micromobility in a major speech at our first big post-pandemic show in California. For part two, Horace will recap these new industry axioms, explain the logic behind them, and take community questions in an exclusive webinar for Micromobility Pro members tomorrow at 11AM Pacific.

Become a Pro member, free for 30 days, to gain access to this webinar and a 40-hour archive of other exclusive episodes.

What You Need to Know This Week

  • Last week Bird made its public debut as $BRDS on the NYSE after completing a SPAC merger at a $2.3B valuation. The deal injected the Santa Monica startup with $414M in fresh capital, funds that will be used to expand existing operations and launch in new cities. Overall, Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden says the company is regaining its footing after a tumultuous 18 months for shared bike and scooter networks brought on by the pandemic. He noted that rides were up 43% in Q2 compared to pre-pandemic 2019 and that Bird expects to reach $400M in revenue next year.

  • Meanwhile one of Bird’s top rival is gearing up for its own Wall Street listing. Lime just announced it raised $523M in convertible debt and loan financing as a prelude to the company going public next year. Lime says the funds will go towards scaling into more cities, replenishing its fleet, and amplifying its decarbonization efforts.

StreetCrowd enables closing the gap between supply and demand. 70% of the market demand is not met. Ubiq addresses that by placing vehicles in the right place at the right time with crowd users, allowing shared mobility providers to have access to scalable automated and decentralized operations that run 24/7, across the city. The result? A revenue boost of 20% within 8 weeks.

Close the gap between supply and demand. Let’s get in touch!

  • Details for the nearly $1.2T US infrastructure bill, recently signed by Biden, can be found here. While the legislation calls for vast new spending on highways, bridges, EV chargers, and other car-related infrastructure, urbanists took home a much smaller prize: $11B for transportation safety for pedestrians and cyclists, $1B for highway removal, and $39B for public transit.

  • The second part of Biden’s economic agenda, the Build Back Better bill, is still being debated in Congress, but things on that front don’t look great for micromobility activists either. The latest version of the legislation whittled the maximum e-bike tax credit from $1,500 down to $900.

  • Bikes are also inexplicably missing from the agenda at COP26, despite the fact that active mobility is one of the best tools we have for fixing the highest-emitting sector of the economy, transportation.

  • Even without much institutional support, the electric bike is on its way to being one of the most popular, defining technologies of the 2020s. The NYT writes: “Modern life is peppered with moments of discovery around mobility: the first car drive as a teenager… In this decade, that moment is increasingly likely to be an inaugural ride on an e-bike, often said to spark a childlike joy, thrilling and freeing.”

  • Related: e-bikes’ market share in Denmark has grown to 20%. How much longer until we drop the “e” and just start calling them “bikes?”

  • As e-bike sales rise, so are cases of theft. Here’s how VanMoof’s e-bike hunters find lost and stolen bicycles. “VanMoof says it’s made more than 2,200 hunts worldwide since it began offering the service and recovered more than 1,500 bikes.”

  • A survey by Singapore-based Neuron Mobility found that one-third of scooter trips provided by the company replaced car journeys in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

  • Related: Neuron is updating its scooters with a new OS and additional on-board sensors that can detect and deter unsafe riding behavior (such as swerving aggressively) by issuing audible warnings or even slowing the vehicle to a stop.

  • Gojek, the Southeast Asian on-demand app, and Gogoro, a Taiwanese micromobility battery swapping startup, are teaming up to launch a moped charging scheme in Indonesia, the world’s third largest two-wheeler market. As it prepares to go public via SPAC, Gogoro is going through a period of rapid expansion, having recently announced deployments in China and India as well.

  • Tuck launched a Kickstarter campaign for an interesting new bike that has a foldable frame and foldable wheels.

  • For commuters who rely on both bike and train, Oonee is bringing its secure micromobility parking solution to Brightline rail hubs in Florida.

  • And taking trip-chaining to a whole other level, ITA Airways, Italy’s new government airline, is partnering with Helbiz to offer its passengers discounted micromobility rentals once they arrive at their destinations.

  • Portland, Oregon, is looking at building e-cargo bike hubs to reduce congestion and pollution from delivery vans. A similar program in Seattle recently found that using e-bikes for last-mile deliveries lowered CO2 emissions by 30% per package.

  • Here’s your periodic reminder that the US has more than three parking spots for every car. This abundance of parking—much of it cheap or free—encourages an auto-centric lifestyle that is actively harmful to our communities and our planet.

Pod People

On last week’s podcast, Oliver Bruce chatted with Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss of Dance about e-bike leasing specifically and building internet subscription businesses generally. A few topics they cover:

🎸 How founding SoundCloud led Eric to micromobility

🚲 What it means to “stream a bike”

đź•ş Early customer response to Dance in Europe

Jobs to Be Done

Welcome to our jobs board, where every week we post open positions in hopes of connecting our talented readers with professional opportunities in the burgeoning world of new mobility. Find out who’s hiring below and sign up for the newsletter to view fresh listings every week.

Hit reply if you have a job that you’re interested in listing.