Rad Power Bikes
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1.65 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2025
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
How it happened
Rad Power Bikes was the biggest name in American e-bikes — founded in 2007 out of a high-school project in Seattle, direct-to-consumer, and by 2021 the best-funded e-bike company in the world, with $318M in sales and a $1.65B valuation. The pandemic demand it scaled into evaporated faster than the inventory and headcount it had added to chase it, and rounds of layoffs, four CEOs in three years and a retreat from retail failed to close the gap. It filed for Chapter 11 in December 2025 with roughly $73M in liabilities against $32M in assets. A January 2026 bankruptcy auction sold the brand, inventory and IP to Life Electric Vehicles for $13.2M — about a penny on the dollar against the peak.
Source: GeekWire/TechCrunch: $150M Feb 2021 + $154M Series D Oct 2021 took total funding past $329M at a $1.65B valuation; Chapter 11 Dec 2025; Bicycle Retailer/GeekWire: §363 auction won by Life Electric Vehicles at $13,276,102 cash (~$14.9M with assumed liabilities), Jan 2026
