An electric scooter company that operated in some of the largest cities across the United States and Europe will soon be auctioning off thousands of its rechargeable scooters after the company went belly-up last month.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company Superpedestrian is set to auction off more than 20,000 of its e-scooters and other owned technologies later this month. Listings are already appearing on the online auction house Silicon Valley Disposition and bidding is currently slated to run for three days beginning on Jan. 23.
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The shared e-scooter industry first emerged to prominence in major cities across the U.S. in 2017 with the launch of Bird Global, Inc. Founded by former Lyft and Uber executive Travis VanderZanden, the ride-share pioneer quickly grew the company to have scooters operating in over 100 cities worldwide in just the first year.
However, the idea generated a string of copycat companies. Superpedestrian entered the shared e-scooter industry in 2020 when it acquired Boston-based company Zagster. It then launched a fleet of its Link e-scooters in dozens of major cities across the U.S. and Europe to compete against Bird.
While Superpedestrian raised more than $100 million in recent years, the company ran into financial struggles in 2023, and the online publication TechCrunch reported that senior leadership was in talks of a potential merger. However, negotiations ultimately fell through and the company announced it was closing its doors last month.
Superpedestrian's dissolution came just days before Bird — the industry leader in shared e-scooters — announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
