Exclusive: Bird Plans to Go Public via SPAC at $2.3 Billion Valuation

Ben Bergman

Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.

Exclusive: Bird Plans to Go Public via SPAC at $2.3 Billion Valuation

Bird Rides, the Santa-Monica e-scooter company that was once a startup darling but saw ridership plunge during the pandemic, is planning to go public through a so-called blank-check company, dot.LA has learned.


Bird is preparing to merge with Switchback II Corporation, a Dallas-based blank check company focusing on companies reducing carbon emissions, according to documents reviewed by dot.LA. Switchback has been marketing a $200 million PIPE offering in recent weeks that allows investors to buy shares of Bird at the IPO price.

Bird will receive hundreds of million in cash through the deal, which it can use to fund its operations as it struggles to achieve profitability and to expand to more markets. Last month, the company announced plans to double the size of its European operation, spending $150 million to enter 50 new cities.

The transaction values Bird at $2.3 billion, below the $2.85 billion valuation it reached in the beginning of 2020. But that was before the pandemic, which drove 2020 revenue down to $95 million, a 37% decline from 2019, according to a deck pitching the deal seen by dot.LA.

Neither Switchback nor Bird's media relations team responded to a request for comment.

The financials included in the slides reveal a company quickly burning through the $1.1 billion of cash it has raised since 2017, with a $226 million adjusted EBITA loss in 2019 and a $183 million loss last year.

However, Bird expects to trim this year's losses to $96 million and to $28 million in 2022 before reaching profitability in 2023. But that is predicated upon bringing in $815 million in 2023 revenue. In pre-pandemic 2019, the company generated $151 in revenue. It expects to bring in $188 million this year.

Bird, desperate to preserve cash soon after the seriousness of COVID became clear, laid off 406 employees via a Zoom call that former employees described as dystopian. The move reduced the company's Santa Monica staff by half. In another cost cutting move, Bird put its recently remodeled offices up for sublease last Fall.

In its pitch deck, the company says ridership has rebounded as much of the world emerges from strict lockdowns. Topline revenue increased 81% over the past month, though part of that reflects the seasonality of the e-scooter business with increased demand during warmer months of the year.

Bird touts an $800 billion market opportunity in micromobility in its pitch to potential investors, a more favorable regulatory environment post-COVID, more durable scooters, as well as consolidation in the industry. It also says it is valued relatively cheaply at 2.8 times 2023 projected revenue.

Formed in 2019, Switchback is led by co-CEOs Scott McNeill and Jim Mutrie, both former executives at RSP Permian, an oil and gas driller that was acquired by Concho Resources in 2018, which this year was acquired by ConocoPhillips.

Switchback merged with the electric vehicle charging company ChargePoint last year.

The Information reported in January that Bird was raising $100 million in convertible debt and has held discussions over the past few months with at least three special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), including former Uber executive Emil Michael's DPCM Capital. Bloomberg first reported in November Bird was exploring the possibility of going public via a SPAC.

Founded by the brash former Uber executive Travis VanderZanden in 2017, Bird became the fastest company in history to reach unicorn status in 2018, a milestone that has become less rarified of late as startup valuations have soared ever higher.

Offering startups a quicker and less scrutinized route than traditional IPOs, SPACs became all the rage last year, with 248 companies going public through that route compared to 59 the year before, according to SPAC Analytics. There have already been 315 this year though recently the market appears to be cooling.

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Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit
Photo: Relativity Space

The largest 3D-printed object to ever fly had liftoff yesterday as Long Beach-based Relativity Space launched its Terran 1 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Terran 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at around 7 p.m. PST March 22. It was Relativity’s third attempt at sending Terran 1 to the cosmos and the nighttime launch was quite a sight to behold. The clarity of the night sky was perfect to see the blue jets of flame cascading out of Terran 1’s nine Aeon 1 engines, all 3D-printed, as the rocket took off.

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What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

What Is ‘Embodied Audio?’ And Can It Help Professional Sports Teams Fill Their Stadiums?
Photo: Edge Sound Research

In 2020, the Minnesota Twins experimented with a new technology that brought fans the ability to physically feel the sounds they were hearing in the stadium in the back of their seats as part of a new immersive way to experience baseball.

The tech was made by Riverside-based startup Edge Sound Research, which built a mobile lounge – basically, a small seating section equipped with its technology and on wheels to travel around the stadium – for Twins fans to experience what it calls “embodied audio” around Target field. It was a bid on the Twins’ part to keep fans more engaged during the game, and Edge Sound Research CEO Valtteri Salomaki said the Twins were impressed.

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B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

B Capital’s Howard Morgan On The Key To Early Stage Investing
Provided by LAV

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, B Capital Group General Partner and Chair Howard Morgan discusses his thoughts on early stage investing and the importance of company ownership.


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