Woman rides a Bird e-scooter in southern California.
Bird, a provider of electrical scooters that customers can rent in cities, said the Recent York Stock Exchange will suspend trading of its stock after the company did not keep its market capitalization above $15 million for 30 consecutive days.
The company’s shares will trade on the over-the-counter exchange starting Monday, based on a statement.
Electric scooter and bike rentals became a stylish alternative to public transit and ride sharing prior to the pandemic, when enterprise capitalists were pumping money into all varieties of growth areas no matter how unprofitable they were. Bird raised over $500 million, and was valued at $2.5 billion in a 2019 round led by Sequoia Capital.
The onset of Covid in 2020 brought the business almost to a halt as cities went into lockdown. Growth resumed in 2021, but the bubble days were over.
That 12 months Bird went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, but the economics continued to deteriorate. Its net loss swelled to $359 million in 2022 from $215 million a 12 months earlier. Revenue in that span increased 28% to $245 million.
The stock lost 80% of its value this 12 months, closing on Friday at 90 cents and giving it a market cap of $11.6 million. That is after a 1-for-25 reverse stock split meant to get the stock trading back above $1.
In June, Travis VanderZanden, a former Lyft and Uber executive who founded Bird in 2017 and was once described as “the electric-scooter king,” left the company.
Earlier this week, Bird acquired scooter startup Spin for $19 million, including $10 million in money.
“We firmly imagine that BRDS current market cap doesn’t reflect the intrinsic value of the Company,” Michael Washinushi, Bird’s interim CEO, was quoted as saying in the statement on Friday. “And while disappointing, this variation in our listing status on the NYSE doesn’t alter our commitment to our shareholders, our valued employees across Bird and Spin, our partners and the many global cities and institutions with which we work.”
WATCH: The promise and pitfalls of e-scooter ride-share