Ford Motor Co. has hopped onto the electric scooter-sharing market through its acquisition of Spin, a competitor to Bird Rides Inc. and LimeBike Inc.

The price of the deal for the company, formally named Skinny Labs Inc., was not disclosed. Axios reported a price of $40 million, while TechCrunch pegged the figure at close to $100 million. The company had raised $8 million on a reported valuation of $40 million in May 2017.

Founded in 2016, Spin offers electric scooters for hire in nine cities and on five university campuses. Although based in San Francisco, it was one of three companies, alongside Bird and Lime, that were forced to remove their scooters from the city’s streets earlier this year after failing to obtain a license to operate.

The acquisition is notable because electric scooter-sharing services have become a proxy war of sorts between the major players in the ride-hailing business. Uber Technologies Inc. invested in Lime in July and acquired bike sharing service Jump in April, the latter recently starting to offer electric scooters alongside bikes. Lyft Inc. acquired the core assets of bike-sharing company Motivate International Inc. in July and has since started using the technology acquired to introduce its own electric scooter service, first in Denver, Colo. and later in Santa Monica, California.

Along with advanced self-driving car technology, Ford has clearly stated its intentions to take on Uber, Lyft and Waymo LLC in the ride-hailing market, starting with a trial in Miami in February and more recently in Washington D.C. in October.

The longer game, at least for the major players, appears to be the creation of an ecosystem of transport options that give customers choice within the same company. Ford already has formed there in terms of transport options. It acquired shuttle-van startup Chariot for $65 million in 2016 and was already testing its own e-scooter service called Jelly.

While developing its own transportation solutions, Ford is also seeking to sell autonomous vehicles to ride-hailing companies via deals in place with Lyft and Baidu Inc.

Photo: Spin