Refocusing to a Canadian mentality that prizes collaboration and caution over speed and disruption is fostering international success and growth for micromobility company Bird.

In 2023 Toronto-based Bird Canada, which licensed the brand of Miami-based Bird Global, swooped in to acquire Bird Global in a reverse takeover. Bird Global had filed for bankruptcy in a dramatic fall from grace after being a Wall Street unicorn.

Bird Canada and Bird Global were acquired by Toronto-based Third Lane Mobility Inc. in 2024. Its subsidiaries are Bird, operating as Bird Canada in the country and Bird globally, and another micromobility brand named Spin which operates only in the U.S.

Bird and Spin manage approximately 150,000 electric bikes (e-bikes) and electric scooters (e-scooters) in over 200 cities worldwide, with up to 8,000 vehicles in almost 30 Canadian cities including Calgary, Ottawa, Surrey, Mississauga, Hamilton, Oshawa and Brampton.

Since 2019, the company has been the low-carbon choice for nine to 10 million trips in Canada, which led to four million car trips being replaced by use of an e-scooter or e-bike.

Improving Bird’s relationship with U.S. cities and bringing it to profitability is the mission of CEO Stewart Lyons, who is leading the company alongside its Canadian board and investors of Third Lane Mobility.

Canadians, he said, “work with people, not against people,” and do not “try to bust down a door and see what happens after the fact. We try to work with cities to create goals and accomplish those goals,” he said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

How Bird’s Canadian management has changed operations

When he and his fellow Canadian executives took over Bird, Lyons said they inherited a company with deep challenges.

The U.S. operations launched its vehicles first and tried to collaborate with cities later. Scooters were put on streets without permission, only to have them quickly removed. Relationships with cities and regulators soured rapidly.

“It wasn’t run in a very efficient way,” Lyons said.

By contrast, Bird Canada partnered with cities first and focused on running profitably. This built trust with cities and communities, which increased ridership and the bottom line, he explained.

A more financially conservative Canadian mindset is being introduced to its U.S. operations. Rather than “dump a whole bunch of scooters on city streets and see what happens”, the plan is to grow with demand like it did in Calgary, its oldest Canadian market.

Lyons is optimistic this strategy is already paying off. Bird is now in more U.S. cities and its relationship with those cities is healthier, he said.

He recounted how Bird Global’s operations were halted in Santa Monica, Calif., because the company had located scooters on streets without the city’s permission. With the Canadian way of doing business, Spin is now entering the city after having first forged friendly ties with the local government.

Third Lane Mobility generated $19.2 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2024, driven primarily by Bird in the U.S. Lyons said it is a sign the new management model is a success and moving Bird toward profitability.

Toronto, Montreal as big holdouts

Now that Bird has adopted a more efficient structure and is working toward financial stability, Lyons wants to up the growth tempo. This year the plan is to expand to 15 to 20 cities in North America and Europe, with Halifax, Vaughan, Ont. and Vernon, B.C. as its newest Canadian markets.

Major absences on Bird’s list of Canadian cities in which it operates are Toronto and Montreal.

Bird ran a pilot in a Montreal public park and while the local government said it was interested in bringing it back, that has not happened yet. Lyons hopes to move forward on bringing Bird to the city — “hopefully that will happen soon.”

Compared to Montreal, the situation is “even a little bit more ridiculous” in Toronto, Lyons said. Bird Canada and Third Lane Mobility are based in the city and the company has programs in other Greater Toronto Area cities.

Lyons said he does not see Bird’s integration as a priority for Toronto City Council. This is despite micromobility bolstering the argument to preserve Toronto’s bike lanes, which are the source of a legal dispute between the city and the provincial government.

If Bird can have its bikes and scooters on the streets of Toronto and Montreal, Lyons envisions Canada being a larger source of revenue for the firm.

Running more efficiently

Another priority for Bird is improving the sustainability of its operations. It plans to add thousands of e-scooters with swappable batteries in Canada this year, doubling the number deployed in 2024. This will improve efficiency and reduce fuel consumption and carbon.

“You can service a lot more vehicles when you’re only changing the battery as opposed to moving around the entire vehicle. You can also do repairs in the field,” Lyons said of the benefits.

Third Lane Mobility is looking to arrange up to $45 million in financing commitments in 2025 to fuel growth and acquire 45,000 e-bikes and e-scooters.

The plan to add more electric service vans to support Bird's sustainable operations has not gone as far as Lyons has hoped, partly because of U.S. tariffs that have thrown global trade into chaos. But the gap has been partially covered with its emphasis on swappable batteries.

Canadian cities, Lyons said, are recognizing they should support Canadian businesses, particularly one that has ambitions to be a global player.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for a Canadian city to select a non-Canadian operator. They don’t need to. We’re the biggest player anyways.”