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Superpedestrian , the e - scooter inauguration known for its self - symptomatic software , is shutting down its U.S.-based shared sea scooter procedure on December 31 and research a sale of its European business , TechCrunch has exclusively learn .
The caller ’s director of U.S. operations , Alexander Berg , confirmed the news to his team Friday afternoon on a Zoom call . Berg enounce the reason for the closure was financial , but did not go into further detail . “ Even our investors have put in money to keep us afloat even to this point , ” he said on the call . “ It was n’t for lack of trying . ”
The shutdown comes just 18 month since the startupraised $ 125 millionin a Series C turn of fairness and debt funding that let in investors Jefferies , Antara Capital , the Sony Innovation Fund by IGV and FM Capital alongside live angel like Spark Capital , General Catalyst and Citi via the Citi Impact Fund .
It appears Jeffries and Antara were two of the investors who helped judge to keep the company afloat , as Superpedestrian assigned patents to each as collateral for loans of unrevealed amounts inJulyandOctober , severally , according to documents filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office .
The e - ice yacht industriousness has been in a somewhat rocky place since then , though . Bird ’s valuationcrashedafter it went public , leading to the companionship get out out of multiple markets . Superpedestrian itself has go through a series of layoffs , including one just months after closing its Series C round . The latest , per a posting on LinkedIn , occurred earlier this month .
On the call , Berg said Superpedestrian will go “ minimal staff ” while pull scooters across the country back into warehouses over the next two hebdomad . Vanessa Carmack , Superpedestrian ’s older manager of human resources for the U.S. , who enounce she had been through layoffs at anterior fellowship , told worker during the Zoom call that the experience was “ frustrating ” and said she felt “ kind of keep out of the loop . ”
CEO Assaf Biderman prevail a light call with some employees earlier Friday initially announcing the decision . Biderman did not immediately react to a voicemail and an emailed request for scuttlebutt .
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Superpedestrian has said its ice yacht are in operation in 60 - plus cities across 11 rural area , though it pull out of Chicago in September citing competitive difficulties . A representative from the city of Waco , Texas , where Superpedestrian of late spun up a scooter fleet , said in a phone call Friday that she was not aware of an impending shutdown .
The startup used technology , and specifically diagnostic and safety equipment software , to differentiate it from challenger like Bird and Tier . The company boosted its technical school efforts byacquiring Navmaticin July 2021 .
It leveraged Navmatic ’s engineering to develop and then roll out a so - calledpedestrian defense safety system , a lineament designed to discover and right unsafe riding behaviors , like riding on sidewalks , in real metre . Superpedestrian had planned to build and roll out raw scooters equipped with its branded Pedestrian Defense to 25 cities across the United States and Europe in 2022 . The initial deployments were supposed to begin in the U.S. and the United Kingdom in pedestrian - dense city by early spring , according to the society .
