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And that's it: Bird, one of the emerging massively hype Scooter startups, has chained in his next pile of funding by raising an additional $ 300 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
announced the long-awaited tour this morning, with Roelof Botha of Sequoia joining the company's board of directors. This is the second round of funding that Bird has raised in the space of a few months, rising from an assessment of $ 1 billion in May to a $ 2 billion valuation at the end of June. In March, the value of the company was 300 million dollars, but the Scooter idea train officially reached an impressive inflection point, investors piling up to get this that many see as the next step in transportation resolution. cars or bikes. New investors in the tour include Accel, Capital B, CRV, Sound Ventures, Greycroft and e.ventures; former investors Craft Ventures, Venture Indexes, Valor, Goldcrest, Tusk Ventures and Upfront Ventures are also in the tour. (So, basically everyone who is not in the Lime competition.)
Mania Scooter captured the hearts of Silicon Valley and investors in general – including Paige Craig, who has actually jumped from VC to join Bird as his vice president of business – with a large amount of capital flowing into the region about as fast as possible. This kind of revolving door fundraising process is not quite uncommon, especially for very hot investment areas, although the scooter scene has exploded considerably faster than most. Bird's ride comes amid reports of a mega-round for Lime, one of his competitors, with the company raising an additional $ 250 million led by GV, and Skip also raising $ 25 million.
"We have met more than 20 companies focused on the last mile problem over the years and think it's a multi-billion dollar opportunity that can have a big impact in the world," he said. Saar Gur, CRV, who did the case for the cabinet. "We have a ton of belief that this team has an original product thinking (they created space) and chops to build something very valuable here." And we were focused on long-term and non-short-term focus for investment. The "hype" in our decision (the non-zero answer) is that Bird built the best product on the market and while we continued to meet more startups who wanted to invest in space – we were returning to Bird as the best company.Therefore, in this sense, the consumer hype is real and was part of the decision.On the economy of units: We consider the first product as an MVP (since the company is less than a year old) – and although the unitary economies are encouraging, they have played a role in the investment decision But we know that it is not even the first in this market. "
There is certainly an argument for Bird, whose scooters will see you pretty much everywhere in cities like Los Angeles, for trips that are only a few miles down wide roads or sidewalks, where you are not likely to fall on someone, a quick scan of a code and a jump on a bird may be worth the little money to save a few minutes crossing these considerably long blocks Users can catch a bird that they see and start leaving immediately if they are late, potentially reducing the pressure to call a car over short distances in the traffic, where a scooter may have more physical sense to get from point A to point B than a car
There are considerable obstacles both theoretical and effective.In San Francisco, even though the population of the metropolitan area United States does not r is that a small part of the population, the company is the subject of a significant decline on the part of the local government, and scooters have for the moment been expelled from sidewalks. There is also the looming shadow of what may happen with regard to tariff changes, although Gur said it probably would not be a problem and that "the economy of the unit seems viable even if the rates were to be added to the cost of the scooters ". (Xiaomi is one of Bird's suppliers, for example.)
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