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When a startup is roughly a year old, and its rival just raised $300M, alarm bells should go off in investor's heads, "If both these companies started a year ag

When a startup is roughly a year old, and its rival just raised $300M, alarm bells should go off in investor's heads, "If both these companies started a year ago, and it only takes $300M to fund the next one, and none of them have IP or even make their own scooter, maybe we shouldn't do this since there are no barriers to entry."

AndrewKemendo 8y ago
only takes 300M That seems like quite the barrier to me. Also crazy to think that 1/3 of a billion dollars is considered trivial barrier.
- pmart123 8y ago
  https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/tiger-global-closes-biggest-venture-fund-of-the-decade https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/tiger-global-closes-bigg... If you throw in NEA's new fund, that's five funds where $300M is less than 10% if they did the whole round, and if the economics are great, a bunch of growth equity funds. It's crazy to me that you'd invest that much without having more data on the unit economics given none of these companies even have an advantage on making the underlying scooter. The more scooters you have and the more market share you have, the faster your bleed money. If the unit economics were great with off the rack scooters, what's to stop Lyft/Uber from adding a scooter option given they already have the demand side of "trying to get somewhere"?
Twirrim 8y ago
I was looking at the figures in that article and was just horrified at the sheer environmental impact of this whole fiasco.
- evan_ 8y ago
  Have you seen the pictures of what must be tens of thousands of bike share bikes just sitting, unused, likely never to be used, in fields in China? https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...
  - pmart123 8y ago
    Wow. Those pictures are ridiculous.
  - saddestcatever 8y ago
    Wow. That's incredible. Thanks for sharing!

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

only takes 300M That seems like quite the barrier to me. Also crazy to think that 1/3 of a billion dollars is considered trivial barrier.

pmart123 8y ago
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/tiger-global-closes-biggest-venture-fund-of-the-decade https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/tiger-global-closes-bigg... If you throw in NEA's new fund, that's five funds where $300M is less than 10% if they did the whole round, and if the economics are great, a bunch of growth equity funds. It's crazy to me that you'd invest that much without having more data on the unit economics given none of these companies even have an advantage on making the underlying scooter. The more scooters you have and the more market share you have, the faster your bleed money. If the unit economics were great with off the rack scooters, what's to stop Lyft/Uber from adding a scooter option given they already have the demand side of "trying to get somewhere"?

Twirrim 8y ago

I was looking at the figures in that article and was just horrified at the sheer environmental impact of this whole fiasco.

evan_ 8y ago
Have you seen the pictures of what must be tens of thousands of bike share bikes just sitting, unused, likely never to be used, in fields in China? https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...
- pmart123 8y ago
  Wow. Those pictures are ridiculous.
- saddestcatever 8y ago
  Wow. That's incredible. Thanks for sharing!