Superpedestrian, the electric scooter The startup known for its self-diagnosis software is closing its US-based scooter-sharing operation and exploring the sale of its European business, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The company's head of US operations, Alexander Berg, confirmed the news to his team on Friday afternoon in a Zoom call. Berg said the reason for the closure was financial, but did not go into further detail. “Even our investors have invested money to keep us afloat even to this point,” he said on the call. “It wasn't for lack of trying.”
The closing comes just 18 months since the startup raised $125 million in a Series C round of equity and debt financing that included investors Jefferies, Antara Capital, IGV's Sony Innovation Fund and FM Capital along with existing backers such as Spark Capital, General Catalyst and Citi. through the Citi Impact Fund.
However, the electric scooter industry has been in a bit of a difficult situation since then. Bird's valuation plummeted after its IPO, leading the company to withdraw from multiple markets.
Superpedestrian itself has gone through a series of layoffs, including one just months after closing its Series C round. The latest, according to a LinkedIn post, occurred earlier this month.
The startup has said its scooters are in operation in more than 60 cities in 11 countries, although it pulled out of Chicago in September citing competitive difficulties. A representative for the city of Waco, Texas, where Superpedestrian recently installed a fleet of scooters, said in a phone call Friday that she was not aware of an imminent closure.
Superpedestrian used technology, and specifically diagnostic and safety software, to differentiate itself from rivals such as Bird and Tier. The company boosted its technology efforts with the acquisition of Navmatic in July 2021.
It leveraged Navmatic technology to develop and then deploy a so-called pedestrian defense safety system, a feature designed to detect and correct unsafe driving behaviors, such as riding on sidewalks, in real time. Superpedestrian had planned to build and deploy new scooters equipped with its Pedestrian Defense brand in 25 cities in the United States and Europe in 2022. Initial deployments were supposed to begin in the United States and the United Kingdom in cities with high pedestrian density at the beginning of the spring. , according to the company.
The story is developing…
