Just under two years ago, we sat down to draw up plans to launch a new “last-mile” transportation option. Spin was inspired by Euwyn’s stay in Beijing, where he first encountered the “stationless” mobility model. Bikes of different bold colors were parked on sidewalks and available for rent by simply scanning a QR code. Gone were bulky parking stations, replaced by internet-enabled locks on the bikes themselves. As much as Uber and Lyft have changed transportation in cities over the past decade, we realized that, between wait times and traffic, short-distance trips back home in San Francisco were often aggravating.
With the support of seed investors from the Y Combinator alumni network and Grishin Robotics, we launched the first stationless mobility system in the U.S. in March 2017, then quickly worked with the City of Seattle to write the first policy framework for regulating stationless mobility. A year later, we started deploying our new electric scooters and witnessed incredible demand from riders.
Spin recognized that that the long-term opportunity lay in a collaborative approach with our city and campus partners encapsulated in our Partnership Promise. It was clear a new policy framework needed to be drawn up — and we’ll continue to move forward in building new regulation for micro-mobility, with the help of advisors like Molly Turner, formerly of Airbnb, Gabe Klein, former commissioner of the Chicago DOT, and Governor Martin O’Malley.
Today, we are excited to echo the news that Spin has been acquired by Ford. We will continue to operate as a standalone business within Ford Smart Mobility, poised to expand aggressively. Adding to that we are immediately scaling up Spin’s team of engineers, designers, urban planners, policy makers, lawyers, and operators to create a affordable, convenient and sustainable form of last mile transportation.
Our acquisition and backing by Ford is just one step. Over the next few years, we plan to scale quickly across hundreds of U.S. markets, including large metropolises, mid-sized cities and college campuses. Our teams will take a hyper-local approach to complementing existing transit infrastructure, ensuring we are serving the communities and neighborhoods who need micro-mobility the most. In the cities where we operate, we plan to help with enforcement around safety and parking, as well as provide rich data to inform urban planning and bolster sustainability initiatives. And we’ll continue to hire locally, while partnering with the highest quality operations teams to ensure our scooters are well-maintained and integrating well among small businesses, city institutions, and transit infrastructure.
Vehicle emissions are the single human largest contribution to global warming. As the UN’s recent report showed, now is the time to act. We are committed to doing our part to help stem the tide by offering sustainable transportation focused on being part of the long-term solution.
The same passion that inspired us to celebrate a new protected bike lane the night we announced our first funding round still drives us forward as we move forward with Ford today. We care deeply about improving city and campus transportation and are excited to be building the micro-mobility infrastructure of the future.
— Euwyn, Derrick, Zaizhuang
If you’re a city or campus that wants to partner with a company that is launching the right way and has significant resources to finance critical safety and enforcement initiatives — get in touch. If you want to work at at one of the fastest-growing companies in San Francisco building one of the most recognizable products in recent years — we’re hiring!
