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 Spin Scooters (2020) | |
| Formerly | Skinny Labs, Inc. |
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| Industry | Bicycle-sharing and scooter-sharing |
| Founded | October 2016 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, US |
Key people | Philip Reinckens (CEO) |
| Parent |
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| Website | spin |
Spin is an electric bicycle-sharing and electric scooter-sharing company. It is based in San Francisco and was founded as a start-up in 2017, launching as a dockless bicycle-sharing system controlled by a mobile app for reservations.
Spin was founded in 2016 as Skinny Labs, Inc. and announced in January 2017, hoping to bring Chinese-style dock-less bicycle sharing to the United States. [1] Spin raised $8 million in Series A venture capital financing led by Grishin Robotics in May, during preparation for a wider rollout in other cities. [2] Spin launched in Seattle, Washington, on July 17, 2017, becoming the city's first dock-less bicycle-sharing system under new regulations from the city government. [3] Spin debuted with 500 bicycles in Seattle, and exceeded 5,000 rides during its first week in operation, surpassing the city's former bicycle-sharing system, Pronto Cycle Share. [4] In late July, Spin announced plans to expand to South San Francisco, California, as part of a larger national rollout. [5] The New York City Department of Transportation, however, ordered the closure of operations in Rockaway, Queens. [6]
In February 2018, Spin rolled out scooter sharing, starting in San Francisco. The scooters were initially priced at $1 to unlock, plus fifteen cents a minute. [7] On April 12, 2018, San Francisco's Public Works department seized several dozen Spin bikes after pedestrians objected to the bikes blocking sidewalks. [8] The company launched in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest in March 2017. The service was suspended by Spin within a day of launch, due to a dispute with the city government over permits and regulations. [9] [10]
With the expiration of Seattle's bikeshare pilot program permit, Spin decided not to seek a new permit with the city and ceased its operations there in September 2018. [11] On November 7, 2018, the Ford Motor Company announced that it had acquired Spin and aims to expand its service to more cities. The Wall Street Journal reported that Spin was valued at $80 to 90 million at the time of the purchase. [12] Spin announced in 2019 that in August that year it would deploy 15,000 scooters in Portland, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, DC, Kansas City, Memphis, and Minneapolis. [13] In September 2019, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced that it has picked 4 operators, including Spin, to each bring 1,000 scooters to San Francisco effective in mid-October, thus doubling the current number allowed. [14]
In August 2020, Spin announced it would begin to offer its services in Germany, starting with Cologne. [15] [16] In late August 2020, the company continued international expansion by launching in the United Kingdom, starting with Milton Keynes followed by Essex. In early 2021, the company entered three additional countries: Canada, [17] Spain, [18] and Portugal. [19] In the meantime, the company also added a new CEO, [20] Ben Bear, to the mix which is only their second since inception.
In August 2021, the company announced its scooters would be integrated into Google Maps. Users will be able to see the nearest scooter, distance to it and how long it would take to reach the vehicle. However, Google Maps users will not have the option to rent the scooter while in the app, being redirected to Spin's own application instead. [21]
In January 2022, Spin announced its closure of all operations across Germany, Spain, France and Portugal as well as select North American markets due to low profitability. Spin remains active in all limited markets where it was selected as a micromobility operator by city officials. [22] [23]
On March 2, 2022, it was announced that Berlin-based Tier Mobility had acquired Spin. Spin's UK subsidiary will be transferred into Tier operations but the brand will keep operating in the United States and Canada. [24] [25] [26]
In September 2023, San Francisco-based competitor Bird acquired Spin from Tier Mobility for $19 million. [27] In December 2023, Bird filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company has plans to restructure and sell some of its assets to some of its existing lenders. [28]
Spin uses orange-colored, single speed, pedal assist bicycles equipped with onboard GPS units and cellular modems. [29] [30] Bicycles are unlocked using a mobile app that scans a QR code on the bicycle. [31] When it operated in Seattle, bicycles had to be parked in designated landscape/furniture zones on sidewalks. [32]
By disassembling abandoned scooters in Seattle, hobbyists found out that they are powered by a Raspberry Pi 4B single board computer. [33]
People in the San Francisco Bay Area rely on a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, highways, rail, tunnels, airports, seaports, and bike and pedestrian paths. The development, maintenance, and operation of these different modes of transportation are overseen by various agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Association of Bay Area Governments, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. These and other organizations collectively manage several interstate highways and state routes, eight passenger rail networks, eight trans-bay bridges, transbay ferry service, local and transbay bus service, three international airports, and an extensive network of roads, tunnels, and bike paths.
Zagster was a venture-funded startup company based in Boston, Massachusetts that designed, built and operated bike sharing programs for cities, universities, corporate campuses, hotels, and residential communities across the United States. As of July 2019, it operated over 200 bike sharing programs. The bicycle program was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the company terminated all operations in June 2020.
Bay Wheels is a regional public bicycle sharing system in California's San Francisco Bay Area. It is operated by Motivate in a partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Bay Wheels is the first regional and large-scale bicycle sharing system deployed in California and on the West Coast of the United States. It was established as Bay Area Bike Share in August 2013. As of January 2018, the Bay Wheels system had over 2,600 bicycles in 262 stations across San Francisco, East Bay and San Jose.
Spinlister is a website and mobile app for peer-to-peer sharing of outdoor sporting gear, specifically bikes, surf boards, SUPs, skis and snowboards. Bikes are the company's primary market. It is commonly referred to as the "Airbnb for bikes”. The platform has listings in 63 countries and users from 120 countries. It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.
Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers ride-hailing, micromobility rental, food and grocery delivery, and carsharing services. The company is headquartered in Tallinn and operates in over 500 cities in more than 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia and Latin America. The company has more than 150 million customers and more than 3 million driver and courier partners. The company has plans for an initial public offering in 2025.
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is a municipal government agency in Seattle, Washington that is responsible for the maintenance of the city's transportation systems, including roads, bridges, and public transportation. The agency is funded primarily by taxes that are supplemented by voter-approved levies from other sources; its budget in 2017 was $450 million.
Mobike, also known as Meituanbike, founded by Beijing Mobike Technology Co., Ltd., is a fully station-less bicycle-sharing system headquartered in Beijing, China. It is, by the number of bicycles, the world's largest shared bicycle operator, making Shanghai the world's largest bike-share city in December 2016. In April 2018, it was acquired by a Chinese web company Meituan-Dianping for US$2.7 billion.
Ofo, stylised as ofo, was a Beijing-based bicycle sharing company founded in 2014. It used a dockless system with a smartphone app to unlock and locate nearby bicycles, charging an hourly rate for use.
Neutron Holdings, Inc., doing business under the name Lime, formerly LimeBike, is a transportation company based in San Francisco, California. It runs electric scooters, electric bikes and electric mopeds in various cities around the world. The system offers dockless vehicles that users find and unlock via a smartphone app that knows the location of available vehicles via GPS.
Superpedestrian Inc., is a transportation robotics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that develops electrified and AI technologies for micromobility vehicles. The company runs the LINK e-scooter sharing program, which is active in 57 cities across the US and Europe.
Jump is a dockless scooter and electric bicycle sharing system operating in the United States, New Zealand, Canada, France, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Australia. The bikes are a bright red orange and weigh 70 pounds (32 kg). Riders unlock bikes using the Uber app and are charged to their Uber account.
Euwyn Poon is a Singapore-born entrepreneur who founded Spin, a shared electric scooter company based in San Francisco that was acquired by Ford in 2018, and is the founding partner of venture capital firm Moso Capital. Poon graduated from Cornell University in 2004 at the age of 18 with a degree in Computer Science and Cornell Law School in 2007. After earning a J.D. from Cornell Law School, he practiced M&A and securities law at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett from 2007 to 2009.
Scoot Networks, also known as just Scoot or Scoot Rides, is an American company which provides public electric scooter and electric bicycle sharing systems. The company is based in San Francisco, California.
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