What Does Bird’s Bankruptcy Mean for Micromobility?

Just before Christmas, Bird Global announced that it had entered bankruptcy, paving the way for the outfit to restructure its financial operations while still, theoretically, keeping its fleets of bikes and scooters running in more than 350 cities around the world.

That swan dive might seem like an ominous sign for the larger micromobility universe, considering that Bird was one of its earliest pioneers — and as of its September acquisition of Spin, its single largest player in North America. Several pundits, though, wondered whether the news might say more about the instability of venture capital speculation that was the wind beneath the company's wings than it does about the value of human-scaled modes themselves, which are becoming increasingly integral to city life.

"Sure, the margins are tight and profitability is still rare, but shared scooter and bike companies are becoming more integral to city life in ways we never thought possible," wrote Andrew Hawkins for the Verge. "The only thing that’s dead is the zero-interest rate-influenced era of unhinged investments and wildly skewed valuations that we saw at the end of the last decade. Hopefully now, with Bird filing for Chapter 11, we will see a new era of more responsible management and better pricing in order to ensure these systems remain viable for years to come."