Scoot Rides, Inc. was founded in 2011 by Matt Ewing, Michael Keating, and Dan Riegel. Keating has a background in transportation software and urban planning, Edwing previously worked with MoveOnadvocacy group, and Riegel was a co-founder of EnergyHub. By September 2012, the company had raised $775,000 from investors including Lisa Gansky and Greenstart. The company opened its service to public beta in San Francisco on September 26, 2012 with 10 scooters. Their fleet expanded to 50 in late 2012. By July 7, 2016 Scoot Rides scooters had collectively accumulated over 1,000,000 miles of riding. In 2016, the company received additional funding, primarily from Mahindra Partners and Vision Ridge Capital, for a new fleet of hundreds of electric scooters by GenZe. In November 2017, the company indicated its intentions to expand and include additional cities beyond San Francisco. The company expanded to Barcelona in May 2018 with 500 electric scooters and the addition of bike sharing to its services with 1,000 electric bikes. On June 12, 2019, Scoot Rides was acquired by Bird, a competitor, for an undisclosed value. Scoot Rides will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Bird.
Services
Scoot Rides provides an online network for sharing electric scooters, which are also owned and maintained by the company. The service has been referred to by the media as the "Zipcar for scooters". The company also provides a similar model for electric bike sharing systems. In August 2018, the company was also chosen as one of the providers of San Francisco's scooter-sharing system using dockless electric kick scooters. In August 2019, Los Angeles Times criticized the company for not providing services to the residents of Tenderloin and Chinatown. The service utilizes GPS to track the vehicles. Riders of scooters are required to have a valid driver's license, but not a motorcycle license. Riders are provided insurance by Scoot Networks. Each scooter has helmets stored in their cargo bin for the rider's usage.
Pricing
The prices of the most popular products are as following, currently as of October 2018 :
Scoots : starting from $4
Kicks : starting from $1
Target audience
The target audience is 18- 45-year-old users, who have access to the scoot mobile app via their smartphone.
Operations
Scoot Rides' headquarters are located in San Francisco, California. Founder Michael Keating serves as co-president.
Fleet
In San Francisco, Scoot Rides utilizes electric scooters by GenZe, a company owned by the Mahindra Group, whose private-equity business, Mahindra Partners, has invested in Scoot Rides. In Barcelona, the company utilizes electric scooters by Spanish company Silence.
