INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Bird has laid off less than two dozen employees, The San Francisco Chronicle first reported
The layoffs affect employees Bird brought on board as part of its~$25 million acquisition of Scoot earlier this year.
Those affected were
salaried employees and/or people with technical backgrounds, according to Bird.
&The integration of Bird and Scoot does not impact or
change our previous or future commitments to San Francisco or to providing its residents and visitors access to the highest quality and most
reliable shared micromobility vehicles and services,& a Bird spokesperson told TechCrunch
&We are planning to relocate a number of Scoot team members to our Santa Monica headquarters while also maintaining an office in San
Francisco for our operations and maintenance teams as well as a number of regionally specific roles.&
Scoot currently operates electric kick
scooters and mopeds in San Francisco, where it one of four companies permitted to do so, as well as other types of vehicles in Santiago and
Barcelona.
This round marks Bird second set of layoffs this year
In March, Bird laid off between 4-5% of its workforce
Those layoffs were part of Bird annual performance review process and only affected U.S.-based employees.
In October, Bird closed a $275
million Series D round led by CDPQ and Sequoia Capital at a $2.5 billion pre-money valuation
That same month, at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden told me he wants the Scoot brand to live on.
&We think it
is a strong brand particularly with cities and so we want it to live on,& he said
&It&ll certainly live on in San Francisco
And then we&re still trying to figure out in other cities what makes the most sense for the brand.&
