In 2014, a group of university students in Beijing founded Ofo, a bike-sharing startup that let customers scan QR codes to rent bikes for short rides around cities, picking up and dropping off the bikes wherever they wished.
The convenience and ease of dockless bike shares spawned competing startups like Mobike and Bluegogo, with each brand distinguished by the bright colors of its bicycles. The bikes became ubiquitous on the streets and sidewalks of China’s biggest cities, and the startups attracted billions in investments, turning founders like Dai Wei, the CEO of Ofo, into celebrity entrepreneurs.
But four years later, at least five Chinese bike-share startups had gone bankrupt, and a Chinese court revealed in June 2019 that Ofo, the sector’s pioneer that was once valued at more than $2 billion, had “basically no assets” and was unable to pay the significant debts it owed to suppliers and customers.