American start-up Bird, a pioneer in self-service electric scooters, announced Thursday that it has chosen Paris as the base for its expansion into Europe. The company is committed to creating 1,000 jobs over the next two years.
Rebalancing towards Europe
The first company to launch free-floating scooters in Los Angeles in September 2017, Bird was the second on the Paris market in August 2018. It is now present in 120 cities around the world, including four in France (Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux), according to its leaders.
"Paris is a big city for micromobility in general, and we want to continue investing in the region," said founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden. "By the end of the year, we will be 50/50 between Europe and the United States" in the activity of Bird, against about 40/60 currently. "Clearly, we can not run Europe from Los Angeles, and having a strong seat in Paris makes sense," he says.
Employees rather than independents?
The thousand employees announced will be assigned to the management of the system, but also to the maintenance of the fleet, the charging of scooters, etc. "We are moving towards a model with employees, rather than people paid for the task," said Travis VanderZanden, referring to the "juicers" who charge the gear at night and are paid by the piece.
While the anarchy on the sidewalks and the casualness of users have tarnished the reputation of electric scooters in the French capital, the entrepreneur remains serene. "We are clearly in a period of transition, to a society moving from cars to other modes of transport," he says. Explaining that Bird's "mission" is "to reduce the number of car trips around the world," he argues that the previous transition from horse to car has lasted about 20 years.