Spin (company)

Spin is a bicycle-sharing and scooter-sharing company that is owned by the Ford Motor Company. It is based in San Francisco and was founded as a start-up in 2017, launching as a dock-less bicycle-sharing system controlled by a mobile app for reservations. Spin later moved into scooter-sharing.

Spin
Formerly
Skinny Labs, Inc.
Subsidiary
IndustryBicycle-sharing and scooter-sharing
FoundedOctober 2016 (2016-10)
FoundersEuwyn Poon
Derrick Ko
Zaizhuang Cheng
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California
ParentFord Motor Company
Websitespin.pm

History

Spin was founded in 2016 as Skinny Labs, Inc. and announced in January 2017, hoping to bring Chinese-style dock-less bicycle sharing to the United States.[1]

Spin raised $8 million in Series A venture capital financing led by Grishin Robotics in May, during preparation for a wider rollout in other cities.[2] Spin launched in Seattle, Washington, on July 17, 2017, becoming the city's first dock-less bicycle-sharing system under new regulations from the city government.[3] Spin debuted with 500 bicycles in Seattle, and exceeded 5,000 rides during its first week in operation, surpassing the city's former bicycle-sharing system, Pronto Cycle Share.[4] In late July, Spin announced plans to expand to South San Francisco, California, as part of a larger national rollout.[5] The New York City Department of Transportation, however, ordered the closure of operations in Rockaway, Queens.[6]

In February 2018, Spin rolled out scooter sharing, starting in San Francisco. The scooters were initially priced at $1 to unlock, plus fifteen cents a minute.[7] On April 12, 2018, San Francisco's Public Works department seized several dozen Spin bikes after pedestrians objected to the bikes blocking sidewalks.[8]

The company launched in Austin, Texas, during South by Southwest in March 2017. The service was suspended by Spin within a day of launch, due to a dispute with the city government over permits and regulations.[9][10]

With the expiration of Seattle's bikeshare pilot program permit, Spin decided not to seek a new permit with the city and ceased their operations there in September 2018.[11] On November 7, 2018, the Ford Motor Company announced that it had acquired Spin and aims to expand its service to more cities. The Wall Street Journal reported that Spin was valued at $80 to 90 million at the time of the purchase.[12] Spin announced in 2019 that in August that year it would deploy 15,000 scooters in Portland, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington, DC, Kansas City, Memphis, and Minneapolis.[13] In September 2019, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced that it has picked 4 operators, including Spin, to each bring 1,000 scooters to San Francisco effective in mid-October, thus doubling the current number allowed.[14]

Spin will expand in Europe, presenting their electric scooters rental services in Cologne, Germany in the spring of 2020. [15]

During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Spin was designated as an essential service and a healthy mobility option. It continued operations, in contrast to many businesses that had to halt. The company provided free e-scooter rides to health-care and grocery-store workers in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Portland, and some other cities.[16] In San Francisco, a hand sanitizer was attached to each scooter.[17]

Equipment and usage

Spin uses orange-colored, three-speed bicycles equipped with onboard GPS units and cellular modems. In 2017, the price for every 30 minutes of ride was $1, or $29 per month with unlimited 30-minute rides.[18][19] Bicycles are unlocked using a mobile app that scans a QR code on the bicycle.[20] When it operated in Seattle, bicycles had to be parked in designated landscape/furniture zones on sidewalks.[21]

gollark: That's easy.
gollark: I've seen two or three but never caught any.
gollark: You mean emptying at 1h drops?
gollark: I get 20ms latency unless there's anything using decent amounts of bandwidth, at which point it goes up to about 2000ms.
gollark: Like in high-frequency trading, where they pay stupid amounts to lay new fibre to shave off a few milliseconds.

References
  1. Kolodny, Lora (January 25, 2017). "Spin wants to bring dock-less bike sharing to the US". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  2. Kolodny, Lora (May 25, 2017). "Spin raises $8 million as bike-sharing battle heats up in the US". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  3. Lloyd, Sarah Anne (July 17, 2017). "Spin is the first dockless bike-share program to launch in Seattle". Curbed Seattle. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  4. Fucoloro, Tom (July 25, 2017). "Spin smashes Pronto ridership in week one, announces improved bikes". Seattle Bike Blog. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  5. Shieber, Jonathan (July 25, 2017). "Spin brings its pick-up-anywhere bike sharing to South San Francisco". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  6. Healey, Mark (August 17, 2017). "City 'Spins' Rockaway Bike Share Plan". Wave of Long Island. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  7. Dickey, Megan Rose (2018-02-08). "Bike-sharing startup Spin is getting into scooter-sharing". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  8. Cabanatuan, Michael (April 13, 2018). "SF scooter problem: City impounds dozens of the two-wheelers". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  9. Small, Andrew (March 12, 2017). "Austin (Briefly) Gets a No-Frills Private Bike Share". CityLab. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  10. Theis, Michael (March 14, 2017). "After Austin's crackdown, free-roaming bikeshare program could soon return". Austin Business Journal. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  11. Lloyd, Sarah Anne (August 16, 2018). "Spin bike share announces departure from Seattle". Curbed Seattle. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  12. Colias, Mike; Brown, Eliot (November 8, 2018). "Ford Buys Electric-Scooter Startup, Looking to Diversify Beyond Autos". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
  13. Hawkins, Andrew J. (July 25, 2019). "Ford's scooter company launches aggressive expansion plan with next-gen scooter". The Verge. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  14. Kafton, Christien (September 26, 2019). "San Francisco, get ready for thousands of more e-scooters starting next month". KTVU. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  15. Porter, Jon (2020-02-27). "Ford's Spin electric scooters are coming to Europe". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  16. "Electric scooter brands Lyft, Spin offering free rides in Denver to health care workers in April". The Denver Post. 2020-04-03. Retrieved 2020-05-22.
  17. "COVID-19 Reveals How Micromobility Can Build Resilient Cities". nextcity.org. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
  18. "Three More Things". Spin. July 26, 2017. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  19. Lloyd, Sarah Anne (July 28, 2017). "Seattle's dockless bike shares: a guide to the bikes taking over the city". Curbed Seattle. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  20. Machkovech, Sam (July 23, 2017). "Dockless bike sharing lands in Seattle—and leads us down unsavory alleyways". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
  21. Gutman, David (July 17, 2017). "Bike shares wheeling back into Seattle, but they're unlike Pronto in 2 big ways". The Seattle Times. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
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