Funding: TechCrunch/GeekWire (>$329M total across 2021's $150M and $154M rounds)
Current status
Assets sold to Life Electric Vehicles for $13.2M (Jan 2026) after Chapter 11 (Dec 2025)
The rise & fall
7 moments · 2007–2026
The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2007
🌱
2007
Founded from a high-school project
Mike Radenbaugh starts building e-bikes as a Seattle-area teenager; the direct-to-consumer company grows out of his garage tinkering.
GeekWire
Feb 2021
Feb 2021
$150M as the pandemic bike boom rages
Lockdown-era demand makes Rad the biggest name in American e-bikes.
TechCrunch
Oct 2021
📈
Oct 2021
The peak: $1.65B and $318M in sales$1.65B
A $154M Series D caps more than $329M raised — the best-funded e-bike company in the world.
GeekWire
2022–24
2022–24
The boom evaporates, the CEOs rotate
Pandemic demand vanishes faster than the inventory and headcount added to chase it; layoff rounds stack up, retail gets cut back, and four CEOs cycle through in three years.
GeekWire
2022–25
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Glassdoor reviews chart the descent from inside: layoff round after layoff round, survivors juggling several jobs among emptied desks, and persistent complaints that the bikes' electrical components couldn't be repaired dogging the product to the end.
Dec 2025
🪦
Dec 2025
Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Files with roughly $73M in liabilities against $32M in assets.
GeekWire
Jan 2026
Jan 2026
Sold at auction for $13.2M$13.2M
Life Electric Vehicles wins the bankruptcy auction for the brand, inventory and IP — about a penny on the dollar against the peak valuation.
Bicycle Retailer
$1.64Bof peak value erased · 18 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
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
Founder
MR
Mike Radenbaugh
founder & CEO (led at the 2021 peak; stepped down 2022, stayed on the board as 41% owner)
