Electric scooter sharing startup, Bird, first launched in Santa Monica, CA, in September. Now, they’re raising a $15m round to expand to the rest of the US.
The company’s founder, Travis VanderZanden, has an all-star pedigree (formerly VP of growth at Uber, and COO at Lyft before that) — and Bird already has 50k active users, and about 1k scooters roaming the streets. Everything seems to be cruising along…
Only one problem: the fuzz
Local police officers have already issued 97 scooter-related citations in the first 6 weeks of 2018.
The city has also filed a criminal complaint over Bird’s failure to obtain the appropriate permits to leave their scooters on the sidewalks (employees collect them at 8pm every night and return them to specified stations by 6am).
TVZ’s defense? “Every mode of transportation is dangerous…”