Scooter Startup Bird Lands $275M in Series D Round

Dockless electric scooter startup Bird raised $275 million in a new round of funding, bringing its valuation to $2.75 billion.

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The Series D round was led by Sequoia Capital and CDPQ. The company last raised money in June 2018, when it raised its $158 million Series C.

The fundraising announcement came soon before Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden took the stage at TechCrunch’s annual Disrupt conference. VanderZanden said the company has made the shift from a growth phase to unit economics—a shift that happened earlier than VanderZanden expected it would.

Bird was founded in 2017 and has $548 million in total funding, according to Crunchbase. The company recently acquired another electric moped company, Scoot, for around $25 million, according to TechCrunch.

Scoot was worth the reported price tag because the company aligned with Bird’s mission and it had experience working with cities for micro-mobility, VanderZanden said. Bird plans on letting Scoot remain its own brand, and Bird does not have any plans to acquire any other scooter operators.

He also brushed off rumors of talks with Uber, where VanderZanden previously worked, saying Bird never had any serious talks with the ride-hailing giant.

Electric scooters and bikes have exploded in popularity over the past couple years, with Bird, Scoot, Jump, and Lime flooding the streets of cities in the United States. Cities have grappled with how to manage them as more and more people have opted for electric scooters over other forms of transit. In San Francisco, up to 10,000 scooters could be available to rent within the next year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The new round of funding should last the company a while, VanderZanden said, and Bird will be continuing to scale in more cities, particularly in Europe.

Bird has positive unit economics, VanderZanden said, and achieving profitability is a goal. The company’s investors include Index Ventures and Valor Equity Partners.