Less than a month after announcing that it had raised money, the electric scooter company Bird is already in the market for another $100 million.
Bird, the dockless scooter-sharing startup, is looking for $100 million just a month after raising money
The company said it raised $15 million last month.
Bird
Bird is looking to raise funds at about a $300 million pre-money valuation, according to people familiar with the round. It’s a reflection of how over the moon investors are about non-automobile transportation within cities.
Update: The company has confirmed that it closed the Series B round co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Index Ventures. With this new influx of cash, the company expects to expand to 50 markets by the end of this year.
Bird announced last month that it had raised $15 million in a round led by Craft Ventures, the new investment vehicle from David Sacks. The round probably closed well before then, but it shows that the company is in constant fundraising mode.
The Santa Monica-based company is the latest dockless company meant to solve the so-called “last mile” problem that helps link people to existing public transit systems.
Bird, co-founded by former Uber and Lyft executive Travis VanderZaden, has taken Santa Monica, Calif., by storm — for better or worse. The company, which lets you book an electric scooter via an Uber-like app and drop off the scooter anywhere once you’re done, launched in Santa Monica in September 2017 but has already seen more than 500,000 rides on its platform.
However, the startup is already coming up against regulatory hurdles. In February, Bird was forced to pay $300,000 in fines for failing to acquire the proper commercial business licenses and obscuring the public right of way.
The city is also now contemplating passing an ordinance that would result in the seizing of scooters for an impound fee of $60 per impound that are left on public roads without city authorization. That means the company could be required to create designated parking destinations by partnering with local businesses — which could hurt the company’s primary value proposition.
TechCrunch first reported the round.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
