Rad Power Bikes reaches deal to sell itself for $13.2 million

Electric motorcycle institution Rad Power Bikes has reached a woody to merchantability itself to a institution called Life Electric Vehicles Holdings (or Life EV) for astir $13.2 million, a small much than a period after entering the bankruptcy process.

Florida-based Life EV bills itself arsenic a “developer, manufacturer, and distributor successful the airy electrical conveyance industry.” It offers a fig of electrical bikes for merchantability connected its website, though astir of them were labeled arsenic “sold out” astatine the clip this nonfiction was published.

A filing to the bankruptcy docket implicit the play shows that 5 entities participated successful an auction connected the Rad Power assets connected January 22. The archetypal bid came successful astatine $8 million, and parties traded bids until Life Electric Vehicles came distant arsenic the winner. When accounting for Rad Power’s liabilities, the full worth of the bid is $14.9 million.

Another e-bike institution called Retrospec had the second-highest bid of $13 million, and is being labeled arsenic the “backup bidder” successful lawsuit the woody with Life EV falls through. The bids were a steep discount to Rad Power’s highest $1.65 cardinal valuation, which was reached successful Otober 2021, per PitchBook. The institution has raised a full $329.2 million, according to Pitchbook data.

The acquisition inactive needs to beryllium approved by the bankruptcy judge.

Rad Power is not the lone institution successful the micromobility satellite to question bankruptcy extortion successful caller years. Peers similar VanMoof and Cake went done restructurings and recovered caller owners. Scooter institution Bird besides went done the bankruptcy process.

It’s not wide what Life EV plans to bash with Rad Power; Life EV CEO Robert Provost directed questions to Rad Power. “There is inactive a process underway and determination is an breathtaking aboriginal being planned for Rad Power,” helium wrote successful a message.

TechCrunch was incapable to scope Rad Power for comment; this nonfiction volition beryllium updated if the institution responds.

Like galore of those peers, Rad Power saw a immense summation successful income during the pandemic, but struggled arsenic that momentum dried up.

The institution went done aggregate rounds of layoffs successful caller years, juggled CEOs, and much precocious had occupation with immoderate of its older batteries catching fire. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recovered 31 reported fires tied to the batteries.

Rad Power told TechCrunch astatine the clip that it “firmly stands down our batteries and our estimation arsenic leaders successful the e-bike industry, and powerfully disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of definite Rad batteries arsenic defective oregon unsafe.”