Bird Global, Inc. (Bird) operates as a micromobility company. The company provides riders with a convenient alternative to transport themselves to work, to a local business or elsewhere in their communities.
Bird’s cleaner, affordable, and on-demand mobility solutions are available in more than 350 cities, primarily across the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. The company takes a collaborative, community-first approach to micromobility. By tailoring its operations t...
Bird Global, Inc. (Bird) operates as a micromobility company. The company provides riders with a convenient alternative to transport themselves to work, to a local business or elsewhere in their communities.
Bird’s cleaner, affordable, and on-demand mobility solutions are available in more than 350 cities, primarily across the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. The company takes a collaborative, community-first approach to micromobility. By tailoring its operations to meet local transportation needs and collaborating with cities, it is actively reducing the hundreds of billions of trips under five miles made by gas-powered trips every year.
The Bird Solution
As the first company to deploy shared e-scooters and e-bikes, Bird provides a new transportation category that is accessible, efficient, and reliable. The prevalence and rapid adoption of e-scooter and e-bike sharing has accelerated the transition away from the legacy, car-centric transportation system while helping to alleviate the financial and environmental burden of car ownership and usage for short trips.
Shared micromobility has many advantages over traditional transportation modes. Unlike personal cars, rideshare services, and taxis, micromobility does not directly contribute to air pollution and congestion. For many, shared micromobility such as e-scooters provide a more efficient form of transportation, especially for trips under five miles.
As a means of transportation, the company’s vehicles provide an affordable and accessible alternative to car ownership. Bird provides riders with an array of vehicles on-demand that can get them to their destination reliably and affordably. In partnership with cities and local transit organizations, Bird and its suite of shared micromobility vehicles are helping to fill the gaps with cleaner, more affordable, and more socially distant modes of transportation. Furthermore, the company’s latest generation of Bird vehicle prevents an estimated 330 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) during its lifetime, or the equivalent to the carbon absorbed by 112 trees.
Offerings
The company’s offerings can be categorized into Sharing and Product Sales.
Sharing
The company’s Sharing business, Bird’s core offering since 2017, provides riders with on-demand access to Bird vehicles through its mobile application (the Bird App).
Users can download the Bird App on both Android and iOS smartphone platforms and become an eligible Bird rider following a brief onboarding process. This process requires users to confirm their age, follow a vehicle operation tutorial, and acknowledge safety guidance and local regulations before their first ride. Once completed, eligible riders can use the Bird App locate nearby vehicles. Riders also have the ability to reserve an available Bird vehicle up to 30 minutes in advance. When they are ready to take their trip, riders can unlock a Bird vehicle using a smartphone by scanning the QR code on the vehicle or by manually entering the vehicle identification code located on each vehicle. For riders without access to a smartphone, they can text Bird directly to begin a ride.
Bird generates revenue in the form of ride fees from trips taken by the company’s customers. For a single ride, riders typically pay a standard unlock fee in addition to a per-minute price for each minute the vehicle is unlocked. Payment is processed in-app after the rider confirms parking compliance.
The company offers a white labeled version of its products and technology (Bird Platform). Bird Platform partners purchase and hold title to fleets of Bird vehicles to operate in their local markets.
Product Sales
In addition to its Sharing business, the company offers consumers the opportunity to purchase Bird vehicles for personal use. Bird’s Product Sales business makes environmentally conscious transportation accessible to a broader population and expands its reach to markets where it does not operate shared fleets. The company also recognizes sales of Bird vehicles to Bird Platform partners as Product Sales.
In May 2022, the company announced an initiative to discontinue its Product Sales portfolio offering, simplify its business model and realign its resources to prioritize Sharing operations within its existing regions.
Operating Model
In-market operations for its Sharing business are managed either via in-house teams (In-House) or with the support of a network of local logistics providers (Fleet Managers).
Growth and Strategic Priorities
The key elements of the company’s strategy are to continue to build on its presence in existing regions; selectively expand to new region; deepen its city partnerships to build trust; further enhance its rider experience; bolster its data platform and analytics capabilities; improve vehicle management and asset efficiency; and transitioning to custom third party vehicles.
Software Applications
Bird’s software applications are purpose-built for riders, Fleet Managers, and city partners. The company is dedicated to providing best-in-class resources and tools for all stakeholders and enabling a seamless experience. The company’s core software applications are as follows:
Riders
The Bird App allows riders to seamlessly locate, reserve, unlock, and pay for a ride on one of the company’s vehicles. With its built-in map, users have real-time insight into the available vehicles nearby. To start a trip, riders simply scan the vehicle’s QR code using the Bird App. Once they arrive at their destination or are ready to end their trip, riders use the Bird App to take a photo of the parked vehicle to confirm it is parked properly. Through the Bird App, riders have visibility into local operational areas and will receive alerts if they attempt to ride a vehicle out of the permitted zones.
The company’s team has been listening to and learning from its riders around the world, inspiring the development of several exciting initiatives, including free unlock promotions, subscription ride passes, and loyalty programs.
By adding new pricing plans based on rider needs and making them available in cities worldwide, the company is able to extend the reach and long-term benefits of micromobility to millions of additional people around the world. Riders can use the Bird App to view pricing and see which plans are available to them.
Fleet Managers
The success of Bird’s Fleet Manager partners is closely linked to the company’s own. That is why the company provides each Fleet Manager with access to a Fleet Manager dashboard, a suite of tools and information designed to support compliant operations while also providing crucial data and insights to help optimize performance of fleet services. Through a customized interface, Fleet Managers can easily locate vehicles in their fleet, track status and battery levels, and identify issues.
Cities
Bird partners with cities across the globe to develop programs that maximize the positive impact of micromobility while helping to drive progress on localized climate action plans and Vision Zero goals. The company works with cities to ensure they have the tools to access and analyze data they need, while implementing robust technical security and data management policies. The company’s City App dashboards provide a tailored view of Bird data, customized to each city’s needs. The company’s in-depth API allows cities to analyze trends and measure the impact of micromobility, all while identifying issues and improving infrastructure within communities.
Vehicles
Sharing Vehicles
The Bird Three features an extended deck and additional mechanical brake for safer riding, a sensor fusion microchip for sidewalk detection, and a neck status indicator light. The company’s e-scooters are compact in size and come equipped with a dual-sided kickstand designed to prevent the vehicle from tipping over. In collaboration with its third party manufacturers, it will continue to improve the design of its e-scooters to both further facilitate rider safety and increase vehicle lifetime, such as the swappable battery feature of the Bird S, which was custom designed for Bird by its third party manufacturers and provides significant operational advantages. Other Bird S features include connectivity for remote motor deactivation, speed limitations, alarm sounds, unlicensed movement and tip over detection, and an aircraft-grade aluminum frame.
As of December 31, 2022, the company’s global fleet of Bird e-scooters consisted of 48% Bird Three, 13% Bird Two, 23% Bird One, 10% Bird Zero, and 6% Bird S.
In June 2021, the company launched its e-bike Sharing service to meet fast-growing demand from cities and riders for more sustainable transportation options. Each bike is equipped with a high-powered electric motor capable of powering riders up hills with as much as a 20% grade, while its 75-pound frame and step-through design offers riders a sturdy yet maneuverable vehicle. Additionally, the shared Bird Bike has a front basket for storage, large pneumatic tires, and IoT features such as self-automating onboard diagnostics, geospeed technology and multi-mode geolocation.
The company’s vehicles are speed-limited to ensure safety, operability, and compliance with local bike lane regulations. For special zoning and speed limit requirements, the company works with cities to ensure its hardware and software are in compliance with specific local regulations, and provides a positive rider experience.
Seasonality
The company experiences different levels of seasonality in each market in which it operates. Inclement weather, including rain, snow, extreme temperatures, and natural disasters, tends to reduce the demand for the company’s offerings. In order to mitigate the impact of seasonality and ensure the company’s vehicles are protected, vehicles are proactively placed in reserve when it expects rider demand to decrease. When weather conditions improve or other seasonal factors increase demand for its services, the company acts quickly to redeploy vehicles and capture the upside.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2022, the company held ten issued U.S. patents and had four U.S. patent applications pending. The company also held six issued patents in foreign jurisdictions and had no applications pending in foreign jurisdictions.
As of December 31, 2022, the company held six registered trademarks in the United States, and also held more than 70 registered trademarks in foreign jurisdictions with more applications pending. The company also has common law rights in some trademarks in certain jurisdictions. In addition, the company has registered domain names for websites that it uses in its business, such as www.bird.co and other variations.
Competition
The company’s competitors include other vehicle and/or ridesharing platforms, such as Lime/Uber, and Lyft, among others.
Government Regulation
In Europe, the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive requires certain entities, such as Bird, to finance the collection and recycling of WEEE at product end-of-life.
The company’s claims based on the use of such offsets and renewable energy certificates (RECs) are governed by various regulations, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ‘Green Guides’.
Certain of the company’s products are also regulated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (the CPSC) pursuant to various federal laws.
Additionally, because the company receives, uses, transmits, discloses, and stores personally identifiable information and other data relating to users on its platform, the company is subject to numerous local, municipal, state, federal, and international laws and regulations that address privacy, data protection, and the collection, storing, sharing, use, transfer, disclosure, and protection of certain types of data. Such regulations include the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, Canada’s Anti-Spam Law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, the U.S. Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (the FTC Act), the General Data Protection Regulation (the ‘GDPR’), the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (the CCPA), and the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act of 2020 (the CPRA).
History
Bird Global, Inc. was founded in 2017.
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