Yes, it does sound like fiction. But that actually is the situation facing , founder of e-scooter network .听

VanderZanden, who this past week from his post as Bird CEO, was expecting his stake to be worth hundreds of millions when the company inked a in the spring of 2021 to go public through a SPAC merger. The agreement reportedly set a valuation around $2.3 billion for the then 4-year-old company, of which VanderZanden owned a roughly 13% stake.

As it happened, the timing of the SPAC deal coincided with a growing tech world fascination around Miami, which had been attracting an influx of prominent VCs and crypto entrepreneurs. Though Bird was founded and based in Santa Monica, VanderZanden joined the Florida-bound flock and went house shopping. Bird also later moved its headquarters to Miami.

VanderZanden鈥檚 Florida starter home was a splashy one. In August 2021, shortly before the merger closed, the scooter mogul a $21.8 million mansion in a posh waterfront gated community in Coral Gables. Featuring nine bedrooms, 11 baths, an infinity edge pool and private dock, the property checked the boxes one would expect at that price point.听

The home also comes with an interesting history. It was purchased in 2016 by a Panamanian shell company linked to Samark Jose Lopez-Bello, a narcotics trafficker on the ICE . The federal government later seized the property and reportedly it in 2020 for $12.5 million.听

By the time VanderZanden came around in 2021, scooters were looking like a much more attractive and legal path to fast wealth. Bird鈥檚 following the SPAC deal announcement called for the company to have an initial offering value in the billions. VanderZanden鈥檚 ownership stake, at that point, looked like enough to afford a whole portfolio of similar mega-mansions

High-flying Bird falls to earth

Things didn鈥檛 work out that way. Bird stock has been heading steadily downward since shortly after the merger closed in November, hitting a new trough around 33 cents per share this week. Bird鈥檚 market capitalization is a mere $94 million now. And VanderZanden鈥檚 stake鈥�13% in the last annual report鈥攊s worth around $12 million.

Given this decline, it鈥檚 not surprising to see that the Florida mansion is back on the market. This time, per , there鈥檚 a $39.9 million 鈥攁 surprisingly ambitious markup for such a short duration of ownership.

Notably, this isn鈥檛 the only mega-mansion that VanderZanden has purchased, or even the highest-profile one. In 2020, he paid $21.7 million to buy a Bel Air mansion formerly owned by Daily Show host . (That went up for sale again too, though it鈥檚 unclear what the current status is.) Before that, the would-be scooter mogul bought an $8.1 million Santa Monica property, which he shortly resold for $9 million.

It鈥檚 also unclear whether Bird is VanderZanden鈥檚 only source of wealth. He served as COO of from 2013 until 2014, and left work as VP of global driver growth at in 2016, before launching Bird. (Lyft later him for allegedly breaking his confidentiality agreement, before settling for an undisclosed sum.)

One thing that is clear, however, is that VanderZanden did not become as rich as he expected to become with Bird. Nor did a host of the company鈥檚 very high-profile investors, including , which led its Series C and D, and , which led the Series B.听聽

The scooter space, in general, just didn鈥檛 work out as planned for the early mover crowd. As we documented a couple months ago, VCs pumped billions into the space, only to find that public markets weren鈥檛 at all receptive to hoped-for valuations.

For what it鈥檚 worth, VanderZanden鈥檚 tony Florida enclave also doesn鈥檛 look like the kind of place where scooter networks would work. In a gated community where homes come with multicar garages, it鈥檚 pretty well assumed that last-mile transport comes with four wheels, not two.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

The We Company, as its known now, was last valued at $47 billion after round in January 2019. (In tandem, Softbank .)

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WeWork has raised in primary, secondary and debt financing, according to 小蓝视频色情网页版. Its valuation has swelled as the company has rapidly grown, but it has yet to turn a profit.

The company鈥檚 revenue grew from $446.1 million in 2016 to $1.82 billion in 2018, according to its S-1 filing. While posting its torrid growth, the company鈥檚 operating losses increased from $396.3 million in 2016 to $1.69 billion in 2018.

What鈥檚 It Worth

To understand how WeWork鈥檚 valuation got so far ahead of its potential IPO price, let鈥檚 take a look at the company鈥檚 valuation history.

WeWork, based in New York and founded in 2010, raised . Its valuation at that point is unclear, but by the time of round in February 2013, the company had of $318 million

The company reached the coveted unicorn status, a $1 billion valuation, after its Series C round in November 2013. The $157 million Series C brought the company鈥檚 valuation to $1.6 billion, more than four times what it was valued at the beginning of 2013, .

WeWork had a pre-money valuation of $4.6 billion by the time of in October 2014. That pre-money valuation grew E in May 2015 in November 2016. (Or, in post-money dollars, $4.96 billion, $10 billion, and $16.9 billion respectively.)

While the valuation of WeWork historically rose and the sums of capital it attracted scaled as well (a $690 million funding round is an enormous amount), the biggest amounts of cash come when and showed up.

WeWork鈥檚 largest venture funding round to date was in August 2017, when it pulled . Its valuation after raising the Series G shot to $20 billion. Softbank continued to lead WeWork鈥檚 later rounds (billions in convertible notes in November 2018 and the $1 billion in January), eventually valuing the company at $47 billion.

From a $1 million seed round in 2011 to a $1.6 billion price tag in 2013 to a valuation of $47 billion this year, WeWork鈥檚 appreciation has been rapid. To see it slash its potential valuation would be surprising if we discounted the broad market pessimism concerning its price tag.

Other unicorns with high valuations (Uber and Lyft, for example) have failed to do as spectacularly on the public markets after their IPO as they managed while private. WeWork may be adjusting its private valuation to limit potential struggle after its debut.

滨濒濒耻蝉迟谤补迟颈辞苍:听.

聽has raised new capital, a for the UK-based, self-described聽“partner management” provider. The SaaS company has now raised a .

The latest round comes in smaller than its Series B () and its Series C (). But, as Partnerize聽isn’t raising in, say, Beijing or Silicon Valley, the rules about average raise sizes matter less. What is important for Partnerize is that it now has fresh capital in the bank to keep on, we presume, growing. Good stuff.

Normally, this sort of round gets lost in the noise of today’s venture market. There are so many huge rounds closing that smaller capital infusions struggle to break through the noise. I’ve heard a number of people in the public relations world bemoan the fact that there are far, far more rounds being announced than there are media pieces covering them. It’s musical chairs for venture activity.

One way, however, to get a bit more notice to your round is releasing more numbers than most firms will disclose. For example, some firms detail relative growth metrics when they raise, saying they have grown by X percent on average for Y years. But as they never provide a starting figure, it’s hard to tell if they are growing quickly from $1 in revenue to $10, or if the resulting figure is material. Therefore, that sort of disclosure is only so useful.

took a different tack, sharing something concrete: its new valuation. So I can tell you, provided the company itself isn’t fibbing, that it is now worth $127 million.

As I type that I’m noticing that the world isn’t falling around me and that Partnerize聽is still operating. As it turns out, sharing more information about your company than expected doesn’t end life as we know it. And, frankly, if Partnerize hadn’t shared its valuation, I doubt I would have bothered to go look up its (as it turns out) somewhat interesting funding history.

And that would have been on me; regardless, you now know about one more non-American startup, so you are welcome.

Top Image Credit: Li-Anne Dias.

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But no speed bump has dislodged the two firms from their paths of quick growth. Indeed, the two companies most famous for capital raises and being banned while attempting to copy the Uber playbook, have each crossed new ridership milestones.

Lime, which began life as a bikesharing company ala Ofo and Mobike, that it crossed the 10 million ride mark. That figure is now 11.5 million per . Bird itself just crossed the 10 million ride mark, .

First, we need to chart it. Per our 辫谤颈辞谤听补驳驳濒辞尘别谤补迟颈辞苍 of the two firm’s growth, we present this updated chart:

Now let’s do some bubble-nomics:

• Lime: $1.1 billion valuation / 11.5 million rides = $95.65 in valuation per served ride;
• Bird: $2 billion valuation / 10 million rides = $200 in valuation per served ride.

Previously, we scribbled some back-of-the-envelop-mathmagic聽to come up with an estimate of $2.50 per Bird and Lime ride given their pricing and how far the nearest Blue Bottle really is. That lets us do even聽more fake math to get a super-loose revenue聽multiple:

• Lime: $1.1 billion / (11.5 million rides聽* $2.5) = $38.26 in valuation per dollar of accrued revenue;
• Bird: $2 billion / (10 million rides * $2.5) = $80 in valuation per dollar of accrued revenue;

Given the incredibly recent launch of each company (Bird September; Lime launched in , but didn’t release scooters until ), those revenue-per-valuation-dollar metrics are essentially revenue multiple cognates, though that gets stretched every day that passes.

What we can say today is聽 what we could say before: Lime and Bird are quickly growing businesses that are not valued, yet, on their revenue in any material sense. That’s true of all venture-backed companies to some degree, but Bird and Lime have certainly more work ahead of them than most to grow into their already-set valuations, let alone whatever their next figures are when they both inevitably聽raise again.

After all, .

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