Bluegogo () was a

bicycle-sharing system A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service where bicycles are available for shared use by individuals at low cost. The programmes themselves include bo ...

based in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

, China, founded and owned by Tianjin Luding Technology Co., Ltd (). It operated in six Chinese cities, and briefly operated in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, United States in 2017. The station-less bicycle-sharing system used a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

to unlock bicycles. The company went bankrupt in November 2017.

History

Bluegogo was founded in November 2016 by Gang "Tony" Li (), the owner of bicycle manufacturer SpeedX, as part of a boom in private bikeshare companies in China led by Mobike and

Ofo Ofo (), stylised as ofo, was a Beijing-based Bicycle-sharing system, bicycle sharing company founded in 2014. It used a Bicycle-sharing system#Dockless bikes, dockless system with a smartphone app to unlock and locate nearby bicycles, charging ...

. The company began operating in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...

and expanded to

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

and

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese provin ...

by January 2017, operating over 70,000 bicycles in total. Bluegogo uses its own bicycle manufacturing plant and raised ¥237 million RMB ($34 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

) in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...

. Further expansions in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

and

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

in early 2017 brought the total number of Chinese cities to six. In January 2017, Bluegogo announced plans to expand overseas to

, intending to "disrupt" the bike-sharing industry in the United States. The announcement was met with resistance from local politicians, who objected to the lack of planning and permits for the "dumping of tens of thousands of bicycles" onto city streets. Bluegogo scaled back its rollout plans and sought to cooperate with the city government, which later approved regulations on station-less bicycle-sharing systems to avoid similar problems in the future. After failing to secure commercial permits, Bluegogo suspended its San Francisco operations and took their bicycles off the streets. According to ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington ...

'', Bluegogo has been discussing a launch in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

, along with rival private bicycle-sharing companies

LimeBike Neutron Holdings, Inc., doing business under the name Lime, formerly LimeBike, is a transportation company based in San Francisco, California. It runs electric scooters, electric bikes and electric mopeds in various cities around the world. The ...

and

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally ...

. On 16 November 2017, Chinese media sources reported that the company had declared bankruptcy and shuttered operations after burning through 600 million yuan (US$119 million) in funds. The bankruptcy was called by analysts as the first sign of a bursting of China's bike-sharing bubble. Green Bike-Transit (), a Guangzhou-based company, took over Bluegogo's operations. Many of its users complained on social media that deposits were hard to refund. The Bluegogo app has since been removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play. Their official website has also gone defunct. As of December 2017, the remaining Bluegogo bicycles on the streets can no longer be unlocked and are left abandoned, attracting vandalism and abuse on those uncollected bikes. Didi Chuxing signed an agreement with Bluegogo to partly acquire the assets of the company in December 2017, expanding Didi's business into the bike-sharing sector. And a number of Bluegogo's former employees have begun working for Didi.

References

External links

* {{Bicycle sharing systems Bicycle sharing companies Transport companies of China Companies that have filed for bankruptcy in the People's Republic of China Defunct bicycle sharing