Bird Says it Never Applied for PPP Loans. Why Does the SBA Say it Got Millions?

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.

Bird Says it Never Applied for PPP Loans. Why Does the SBA Say it Got Millions?

Bird, the Santa Monica-based e-scooter unicorn valued at $2.77 billion dollars, is listed in a database of thousands of companies that the Small Business Administration (SBA) made public Monday that received Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans. According to the SBA, Bird received a loan of between $5 and $10 million in late April to help it retain 341 jobs, which was a month after it laid off 406 employees via Zoom.

But in a statement, Bird said it never applied for the funds and it was trying to determine why it was included on the list. "Bird was erroneously listed as a company that filed for a PPP Loan," the company said.


A senior SBA official told dot.LA that if the lender did not cancel the loan after it was returned, the loan status may not be fully canceled and it would appear in the data. However, Bird said it never returned the loan because it never applied in the first place.

"We did not apply for nor did we receive a PPP Loan," the company said. "We decided as a company not to file an application as we did not want to divert critical funding from small and local businesses."

Bird's founder and CEO, Travis VanderZanden, elaborated on what happened in a tweet Monday afternoon referring to the company's lender; "It looks like Citi started an application while they waited for our decision on whether to formally apply. We discussed internally and told Citi we didn't want to apply via email on April 23rd. They confirmed that the temp app was cancelled that evening and never submitted."'

Hyperloop and Canoo also on the list

Other local companies included in the PPP database included Culver City-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which received a loan in the range of $150,000 to $350,000 to retain 15 jobs and the Torrance electric maker, Canoo, which got a loan just last week of between $5-$10 million to save an undisclosed number of jobs. (dot.LA also received PPP funds of less than $150,000.)

Canoo has raised a billion dollars in venture funding, according to Pitchbook data, and some of have been critical of deep-pocketed venture backed startups taking money from the program.

"There is a money grab going on right now by some venture-backed startups that this program absolutely should exclude," wrote Albert Wenger, a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), a New York-based early stage VC firm focused on investing in disruptive networks in April. "I urge everyone who is running a venture backed company with a lot of money in the bank and limited COVID-19 impact to think twice about applying for PPP."

Companies such as Sweetgreen and Shake Shack decided to return their loans in April after being criticized for depleting funds from a program meant to help small businesses.

But far from running out of money the PPP program still has some $130 billion left in the bank and on July 4, President Trump signed legislation extending the deadline to apply until August 8, 2020.

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LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys

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.

LA Tech Week: Female Founders Provide Insights Into Their Startup Journeys
Decerry Donato

Women remain a minority among startup founders. According to Pitchbook, even though women-led startups in the United States received a record $20.8 billion in funding during the first half of 2022, U.S. companies with one or more female founders received less than 20% of total venture funding in 2022. U.S. companies solely led by female founders received less than 2% of the total funding.

The panel, titled Female Founders: Planning, Pivoting, Profiting, was moderated by NYU law professor Shivani Honwad and featured Anjali Kundra, co-founder of bar inventory software Partender; Montré Moore, co-founder of the Black-owned beauty startup AMP Beauty LA; Mia Pokriefka, co-founder and CEO of the interactive social media tool Huxly; and Sunny Wu, founder and CEO of fashion company LE ORA.

The panelists shared their advice and insights on starting and growing a business as a woman. They all acknowledged feeling pressure to not appear weak among peers, especially as a female founder. But this added weight only causes more stress that may lead to burnout.

“The mental health aspect of being a founder should not be overshadowed,” said Kundra, who realized this during the early stages of building her company with her brother..

Growing up in Silicon Valley, Kundra was surrounded by the startup culture where, “everyone is crushing it!” But she said that no one really opened up about the challenges of starting your own company. .

“Once you grow up as a founder in that environment, it's pretty toxic,” Kundra said. “I felt like I really wanted to be open and be able to go to our investors and tell them about challenges because businesses go up and down, markets go up and down and no company is perfect.”

Honwad, who advocates for women’s rights, emphasized the value of aligning yourself with people with similar values in the tech ecosystem. “[Those people] can make your life better not just from an investment and money standpoint, but also a personal standpoint, because life happens,” she said.

Moore, who unexpectedly lost one of her co-founders at AMP Beauty, said that entrepreneurs “really have to learn how to adapt to [their] circumstances.”

“She was young, healthy, vibrant and we've been sorority sisters and friends over the past decade,” she said about her co-founder Phyllicia Phillips, who passed away in February. “So it was just one of those moments where you have to take a pause.”

Moore said this experience forced her to ask for help, which many founders hesitate to do. She encouraged the audience to try and share their issues out loud with their teams because there are always people who will offer help. When Moore shared her concerns with her investors, they jumped in to support her in ways she didn’t think was possible.

Kundra said that while it is important to have a support group and listen to mentors, it is very important for entrepreneurs to follow their own thinking and pick and choose what they want to implement within their strategy. “At the end of the day, you really have to own your own decisions,” she said.

Kundra also said that while it is easy to turn to your colleagues and competitors and do what they are doing, you shouldn’t always follow them because every business is different.

“When I was in the heat of it, I kind of became [a part of] this echo chamber and that was really challenging for us,” Kundra added, “but we were able to move beyond it and figure out what worked for us [as a company] and we're still on a journey. You're always going to be figuring it out, so just know you're not alone.”

K-beauty Entrepreneur Alicia Yoon On Taking the Leap From Corporate Consultant to Starting Her Skincare Brand

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.

Alicia Yoon in black and white
Alicia Yoon

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Peach & Lily founder and CEO Alicia Yoon discusses her journey from being a corporate consultant to establishing her own skincare brand as well as the necessity of having an airtight business model to become successful.

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LA Tech Week: Local Climate Investors Assess and Vet Green Startups

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

LA Tech Week: Local Climate Investors Assess and Vet Green Startups
Samson Amore

In a region known for being a national trailblazer when it comes to climate policies, there’s no shortage of green energy startups in L.A. looking for funding. There’s also a plethora of investors and incubators, which means founders looking for cash flow should be extra specific about their value proposition when they pitch to cut through the noise. At least that was the message coming from the panelists at the UCLA Anderson School of Management on Tuesday.

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