Bird Scooters Buys out Competitor to Get Back in San Francisco

American electric scooter company Bird bought competitor Scoot Wednesday, a move that will allow the rideshare company to return to San Francisco. Bird was banned from the streets of the City by the Bay last year after failing to obtain a parking permit for its fleet of scooters.

Buying Scoot, which does hold a permit, will allow Bird to return to the San Francisco market, which provides an all-important window into new transportation technology. Bird did not disclose how much it paid, but it is estimated to have been about $25 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Bird's purchase of Scoot lets it back into San Francisco https://t.co/kwwfISdrbi pic.twitter.com/5oSW5V33d2

— Márcio M. Silva (@marciojmsilva) June 12, 2019

Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Scoot, which also employs a fleet of self-service e-scooters, will become a complete subsidiary of Bird, which is based in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles.

Faced with the rapidly growing scooter rideshare craze, San Francisco ordered all e-scooter companies in April to obtain permits to park their fleets in public areas. As a result, e-scooters vanished from the city’s streets entirely for several months as companies applied for permits. Only two companies, Skip and Scoot, were given permits for a year-long trial period. Bird, Lime and Jump, which is run by Uber, did not receive permits.

Photo: Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images

The scooter rideshare trend has been hailed as a potential revolution for urban transport, but a number of media reports have highlighted the potential dangers of scooter use on sidewalks and on city streets and roads.

As of February, more than 1,500 people had been treated for injuries from using e-scooters in the United States since the craze began in late 2017. Several European cities are also struggling with the proliferation of e-scooters. Germany has banned using them on sidewalks, and Paris will ban them entirely starting in September.

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