Friday, June 8, 2018

Bird To Face Competition From Uber, Lyft In San Francisco

Los Angeles-based on-demand scooter rental service Bird will have to compete against both Uber and Lyft in its fight for the San Francisco market. According to The Verge, both companies have applied for electric scooters in San Francisco, and are hoping to operate electric scooters there. Neither Uber nor Lyft currently have electric scooter operations, although Uber recently acquired a bike sharing startup. Bird--started by Travis VanderZanden, who has been an executive at both Uber and Lyft--already has been in hand to hand combat with another scooter-sharing service, Lime, in San Francisco as well as a host of other cities nationwide. VanderZanden had been COO at Lyft, and also had been at Uber. Bird has raised funding rom Valor Equity Partners and Index Ventures, and also included Craft Ventures, Goldcrest Capital, plus Tusk Ventures and Upfront Ventures, and is reportedly seeking at least another $200M to help it fund its fight against its competitors.