Xiaoming Bike
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Xiaoming Bike (小鸣单车) was a Chinese dockless bike-sharing startup founded in Guangzhou in July 2016. At its peak it operated more than 430,000 light-blue bicycles across 10+ Chinese cities, funded by user deposits and venture capital — about ¥100 million raised during the 2016–2017 bike-sharing boom. It became the first bike-rental company in China to enter formal bankruptcy proceedings.
02 / Xiaoming Bike FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The company burned cash deploying hundreds of thousands of bikes while competing against far better-funded rivals Ofo and Mobike. User deposits were used to cover operating expenses instead of being held in reserve, so when refund requests surged the money was gone. Staff alleged the company's controller misappropriated funds and disappeared; the CEO left and most employees went unpaid from September 2017. The Guangdong Consumer Council filed a public-interest lawsuit in December 2017 — the first against a bike-rental firm — and the company entered bankruptcy in July 2018.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Founded in Guangzhou in July; raised about ¥100 million during the bike-sharing funding craze and deployed 430,000 bikes across 10+ cities.
- Deposit crisis
Users found they could not get deposits back; staff alleged the controller misappropriated funds and disappeared, the CEO departed, and the Guangdong Consumer Council filed a public-interest lawsuit in December.
- Bankruptcy
On July 10 the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court opened bankruptcy proceedings — China's first bike-rental bankruptcy. The company disclosed debts of about ¥45 million (~$6.5M), including roughly ¥25 million (~$3.6M) in unpaid deposits; remaining bikes were sold to recyclers for about ¥12 each.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Entered bankruptcy proceedings in July 2018 under the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court.
- 02
Disclosed debts of about ¥45 million (~$6.5 million), including roughly ¥25 million (~$3.6 million) in unpaid user deposits; at peak, deposits had totaled ¥800 million.
- 03
Remaining bicycles were collected and sold to recyclers for about ¥12 (~$1.77) each.
- 04
No audited net-loss figure was ever published; disclosed debt is not a loss measure, so loss_amount is left null.