Rad Power Bikes files for bankruptcy and is looking to sell the business
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Electric bike company Rad Power Bikes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday, weeks after it warned employees that it could shut down without new funding. The company will continue to operate while the bankruptcy case proceeds, and it’s looking to sell the business within 45-60 days, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “This step allows us to keep operating in the ordinary course of business while we pursue the best possible outcome for the people who rely on Rad every day,” they said in a statement. “Our goal is to keep the company intact and preserve the relationships we have built with riders, vendors, suppliers, and partners.” Rad Power is the latest in a series of e-bike companies from around the world to go through bankruptcy after pandemic-era excitement for the category wore off. Some of those companies have re-emerged, though, with VanMoof and Cake finding new owners during their respective court-led restructuring processes. Rad itself had told employees in November that there had been a “very promising” option to keep the company afloat that was “likely to close,” but the deal fell apart. The company has not shared more details about that potential deal. Weeks later, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning that older Rad Power batteries posed “a risk of serious injury and death” after receiving 31 reports of fires. Rad Power said it “strongly disagrees” with the CPSC’s characterizations. Rad’s tough November came at the end of a fairly tumultuous few years for the company. It has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs and swapped CEOs earlier this year, bringing in an executive with decades of experience turning around underperforming companies. That new CEO, Kathi Lentzch, said Rad was shifting away from the direct-to-consumer model that had helped fuel its rise and towards a retail-focused approach. “This shift creates new opportunities to reach more riders, strengthen customer relationships, and evolve the brand in meaningful ways,” she said in a statement at the time. “[I]t’s an incredible time to come on board.” The company said it entered the bankruptcy process with $32 million in assets and $73 million in liabilities. More than $8 million of its debt was owed to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency for unpaid tariffs. (The company has listed this claim as ‘disputed’ in the bankruptcy paperwork.) It’s not clear how much that contributed to Rad’s slide into bankruptcy. But it wouldn’t be the first time that Donald Trump’s tariffs helped push a micromobility company over the edge. During his first term, Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports helped take the remaining wind out of electric skateboard company Boosted’s sails. Boosted went under shortly after. Topics e-bikes, micromobility, Rad Power Bikes, Transportation Sean O'Kane Sr. Reporter, Transportation Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane. You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing sean.okane@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
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