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Poon and his co-founders Derrick Ko and Zaizhuang Cheng started Spin in San Francisco and first launched in Seattle's pilot program in the summer of 2017. But within a year, the company would be said to be bikes and pivot to electric scooters. Long Beach, California, Detroit, and Coral Gables, Florida.
Ford is investing about $ 200 million in spin, a source close to the deal says. Since founding, the company raised $ 8 million from Grishin Robotics, Exponent, and others – a small sum compared to the formidable competitors in the red-hot e-scooter industry.
Spin is small compared to competitors Bird and Lime, which are both in more than 100 cities. Lime, which raised $ 467 million from the likes of Uber and Alphabet at $ 1 billion valuation, and Bird, which raised $ 415 million and valued at more than $ 2 billion.
Spin markets itself as an e-scooter company that "asks for permission" before launching, but it is known as "scooter-geddon" in San Francisco. In March, Lime, Bird, and Spin deployed over 3,000 e-scooters on the streets and sidewalks and chaos ensued. Many people started riding the scooters on the sidewalks and other traffic laws.
A community backlash to public hearings, cease and desist letters, and eventually the city issued a temporary ban on e-scooters. This summer, the city issued for its e-scooter pilot program to lesser-known companies Skip and Scoot, but regulators denied Lime, Bird, and Spin.
Ford confirmed the deal, via a blog post, on Thursday. Sunny Madra, vice president of Ford X, said the company's startup incubator, wrote that the acquisition is a way to diversify its offerings and capture customers who do not want to own a car.
"Spin adds an exciting new offering to Ford's mobility portfolio, which is more easily and expensively," writes Madra.
Ford will eventually expand the e-scooter program to more than 100 cities, Madra told Reuters. Spin is Ford's fourth investment in the micromobility space – the company also invested in Jelly, another e-scooter company, Chariot, a ride-sharing service, and bike-share company GoBikes.
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