Embattled electric bike maker Rad Power Bikes is facing another challenge as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning to consumers Monday to stop using some of the Seattle-based company’s bikes because of danger posed by their lithium-ion batteries.
The product safety warning urges consumers to immediately remove and dispose of hazardous batteries that “can unexpectedly ignite and explode, posing a fire hazard to consumers, especially when the battery or the harness has been exposed to water and debris.”
The CPSC said Rad “has refused to agree to an acceptable recall” for the batteries, which are manufactured in China.
The batteries were sold as replacements and with a variety of Rad bikes via Rad’s website, Best Buy stores and independent bike shops. The battery model number (HL-RP-S1304 or RP-1304) is printed on a label on the back or rear of the battery and bike models included: RadWagon 4, RadCity HS 4, RadRover High Step 5, RadCity Step Thru 3, RadRover Step Thru 1, RadRunner 2, RadRunner 1, RadRunner Plus, and RadExpand 5.
The report adds another significant obstacle to Rad’s continued operations. Earlier this month, Rad revealed that it was struggling to survive due to financial difficulties, and the e-bike seller said that it was in danger of shutting down by early January.
On Monday, Rad disputed the CPSC’s findings. “Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the e-bike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe,” the company said in a lengthy statement provided to GeekWire (in full below).
Rad said the significant cost of CPSC’s all-or-nothing recall demand would force Rad to shut down immediately with no way to support its riders or employees.
CPSC Warns Consumers to Immediately Stop Using Batteries for E-Bikes from Rad Power Bikes Due to Fire Hazard; Risk of Serious Injury or Death www.cpsc.gov/Warnings/202…
— U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (@cpsc.gov) 2025-11-24T19:03:26.293Z
Rad said it offered “multiple good-faith solutions” to address CPSC’s concerns over at least 31 reports of fire, including what the agency said were 12 reports of property damage caused by Rad batteries, totaling approximately $734,500.
Rad said the incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent.
“While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products,” the company’s statement read.
The company said its batteries were tested by independent third-party labs as part of its typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, “and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards.”
Rad upgraded its bikes to what it calls the Rad Safe Shield battery in early 2024, and the company said it offered to upgrade consumers to those batteries at a substantial discount as part of one of its solutions during the CPSC investigation.
The company stressed in its statement that all lithium-ion batteries, not just in e-bikes, can pose a fire risk if improperly handled or exposed to significant water, and the company promotes proper care and maintenance in its user manuals and customer safety guides.
Rad Power Bikes, headquartered in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, launched as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2015.
The company saw huge demand amid the pandemic as more people bought e-bikes. Its sales and workforce surged and it raised more than $300 million from investors in 2021. The company was valued at $1.65 billion that year, according to PitchBook, making it one of a handful of “unicorn” startups in the Seattle region at the time.
The company has attracted nearly 700,000 riders around the globe, but a series of missteps and macroeconomic challenges in recent years have led to more than seven rounds of layoffs and a remarkable downfall.
A spokesperson told GeekWire on Monday that Rad’s filing of a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the Washington state Employment Security Department earlier this month was due to the company’s financial circumstances and its obligation to comply with state law. It was not related to the CPSC investigation.
Three years ago, Rad issued a recall on its RadWagon 4 electric cargo bikes over an issue with tires and rim strips that created a fall and crash hazard.
In 2023, The New York Times reported on a rise in micro-mobility device fires or overheating incidents caused by poorly made batteries that the CPSC said was particularly acute in densely populated areas like New York City.
The CPSC urged consumers on Monday to immediately remove affected batteries and dispose of them following local hazardous waste procedures.
Rad Power Bikes statement regarding CPSC warning:
Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the ebike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe.
We have a long and well-documented track record of building safe, reliable ebikes equipped with batteries that meet or exceed rigorous international safety standards, including UL-2271 and UL-2849. The CPSC proposed requiring these UL standards in January 2025, but has yet to adopt them. Rad ebikes have met these standards for years.
Reputable, independent third-party labs tested Rad’s batteries, both as part of our typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards. Our understanding is that the CPSC does not dispute the conclusions of these tests. It is also our understanding that the battery itself was not independently examined per industry-accepted test standards.
Context Matters
The incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent. While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products.
It is also widely understood that all lithium-ion batteries—whether in ebikes, e-scooters, laptops, or power tools—can pose a fire risk if damaged, improperly charged, exposed to excess moisture, subjected to extreme temperatures or improper modifications to the electrical components, all of which Rad repeatedly advises against in user manuals and customer safety guides. Contrary to the CPSC’s statement, mere exposure to water and debris does not create a hazard; rather, significant water exposure, as warned against in our manuals, can pose a hazard.
These risks apply across industries and exist even in products that are fully UL compliant. Ebike batteries are significantly more powerful than household device batteries, which is why proper care and maintenance are so important and why Rad continues to invest in rider education and safety innovation.
Rad’s Cooperation with the CPSC
Rad hoped this process would be an opportunity to work with the agency and others in the industry to improve rider education and offer clearer, more consistent safety guidance on how to use and store ebikes and their batteries safely.
Rad offered multiple good-faith solutions to address the agency’s concerns, including offering consumers an opportunity to upgrade to Safe Shield batteries (described below) at a substantial discount. CPSC rejected this opportunity. The significant cost of the all-or-nothing demand would force Rad to shut its doors immediately, leaving no way to support our riders or our employees.
A Commitment to Safety and Innovation
Rad has been a pioneer in promoting and advancing energy-efficient transportation, and our efforts to innovate and build safer, better batteries led to the development of the Rad Safe Shield battery. However, a product that incorporates new, safer, and better technology does not thereby mean that preceding products are not safe or defective. For example, when anti-lock brakes were developed, that did not render earlier cars unsafe; it simply meant a better, safer technology was available to consumers.
That kind of thinking discourages innovation and limits the accessibility that ebikes bring to millions of people. Without the adoption of clear, common-sense standards, no electric bike manufacturer can operate with confidence.
Previously:
What happened to Rad Power Bikes?
That’s the question on many minds in Seattle and beyond after the startup revealed Monday it is facing a potential shutdown due to “significant financial challenges.”
Rad started as a scrappy hardware startup and grew into the largest e-bike seller in North America. The company’s co-founders won Young Entrepreneur of the Year honors at the GeekWire Awards. Rad raised more than $300 million in 2021 and hit a $1.65 billion valuation — a rare unicorn in Seattle.
But a series of missteps and macroeconomic challenges led to more than seven rounds of layoffs and a remarkable downfall. Rad said it could shut down as soon as January.
“We are still exploring every viable option to preserve the brand and the community that helped build it,” the company said in a statement to GeekWire.
During a ride along the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle this week, we met John Ward, who was cruising on his Rad City electric bike.
“It’s a bummer,” Ward said of the hometown company’s struggles. “I’m 76 and I don’t like climbing up the hills anymore, and I got this Rad bike and I’ve been very happy.”
Ward, one of nearly 700,000 Rad riders around the globe, is a longtime cyclist who said he uses the e-bike for regular rides with friends and also trips to the swimming pool, the grocery store and the farmers market. He said he’s concerned that if the company goes out of business it will be tough to get parts or service.
We spoke with former Rad execs, industry experts, bike shop owners, and hardware startup leaders to understand what went wrong at the company.
Rad’s story is a case study in what happens when a breakout hardware brand bets its future on a once-in-a-century pandemic demand spike — and then gets hit with a supply chain storm and the realities of venture-backed consumer hardware.
Right product at the right moment
Rad gave customers “that feeling like they were a kid again,” co-founder Ty Collins told GeekWire this week.
The company, born from founder Mike Radenbaugh’s teenage tinkering, launched a direct-to-consumer model in 2015 with an e-bike at an approachable price.
“They made bicycles accessible to people that may be intimidated going into a bike shop,” said Peter Clancy, business partner at Westside Bicycle in Seattle.
Rad opened up a new “lifestyle” market segment — sub-$2,000 e-bikes for regular people, not hardcore cyclists.
“Rad kind of built the e-bike space,” said Justin Taylor, editor at Electric Bike Report.
Marty Pluth, general manager at Gregg’s Cycle, remembers commuting over Seattle’s 520 bridge and seeing “a ton of Rad bikes” owned by people in a ski jacket or baggy shorts — a sign the company had unlocked a new kind of customer.
Scrappy and scaling
The company’s early team was a ragtag crew doing multiple jobs at once. It was also methodical. “We just really efficiently scaled our spend,” Collins said.
Rad quickly found product-market fit after an initial crowdfunding campaign. From there, sales kept booming, from Ballard to Berlin. “We’d sell thousands of bikes in seconds,” Collins said. “We literally couldn’t keep bikes in stock.”
The company reported $100 million in revenue in 2019 and landed investment from Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon, former Zulily and Blue Nile execs. Later that year it inked a delivery partnership with Domino’s.
“I see a business with super passionate customers, a cool product, and awesome entrepreneurs,” Vadon told GeekWire that year. “That’s what you want to be investing in.”
Pandemic boost
Then the e-bike market exploded as the pandemic hit. People wanted to get outside and have fun. There was also a climate-friendly element.
Rad cited a 297% increase in demand in May 2020.
COVID brought the classic “is this a blip or a new normal?” dilemma for Rad and many other e-commerce companies experiencing a surge of orders.
“The thought was that this was a catalyst in the electric bike boom,” Collins said.
No matter what, “we had to make sure that we had inventory for it,” Collins said. “If people wanted to buy bikes, we needed bikes.”
Step on the gas
Rad raised more than $300 million from investors in 2021, doubled headcount to more than 600 employees, and bet big on sustained demand.
But like many other businesses during the pandemic, Rad dealt with supply chain delays and disruption. The company went to great lengths to meet demand — in mid-2021, it bought 64 containers and chartered its cargo from Asia into a non-traditional port near Seattle.
Bike companies over-ordered on long lead times assuming COVID demand would keep going, according to Pluth. But he said the surge slowed dramatically by the summer of 2022.
“Prices were driven down, margins were driven down,” Pluth said. “Rad was affected — everybody was.”
As the pandemic demand settled, Rad was saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory.
“We just had too much inventory liability that we couldn’t be flexible,” said Leah Hunkins, a former supply chain leader at Rad. “It’s like walking around with a bowling ball around our ankles and going for a run — you can’t move.”
Pluth stressed that selling bikes below cost to clear inventory can be problematic.
“The more you sell, the more money you’re losing,” he said. “You’re in between this double-whammy of lower demand and a lot of product in stock. The other companies were able to work through that, given they have a lot longer track record and more diversified product. I’m just not sure Rad was able to do that.”
A growth-at-all-costs mindset may have made sense while Rad’s bikes were selling faster than they could be built. But it ended up causing problems down the road as the company started missing revenue expectations.
“The only thing we’re probably guilty of is being overly optimistic that Rad was on this trajectory of growth that would never stop,” Hunkins said.
Collins, who stepped down in 2021, said the scarcity mindset began to shift once the company started raising outside capital. “When you have more money to spend … it does present a lot more doors that, in theory, could be opened,” he said. “It gives you a lot of keys to a lot of doors.”
He added that the “internal secret sauce” to Rad’s success was allowing employees to “take real ownership over the brand and feel like they were really a part of everything.”
New kids on the block
At the same time, Rad faced an influx of strong competitors — Lectric, Velotric and others — plus traditional brands finally moving into e-bikes, all slicing off pieces of the pie.
As more options arrived — from cheap Amazon imports to higher-end brands — Rad was squeezed in the middle: not the cheapest, not the most premium.
“The differentiation of our product got more challenging,” Hunkins said.
Ward, the rider on the Burke-Gilman, agreed that a saturated market may have created trouble for Rad. During his short stop to talk to GeekWire, cyclists riding e-bikes from Aventon, Lectric, Emotion, Super 73, Gazelle, Urban Arrow and more passed by on a trail that’s been dominated by Rad in recent years.
Clancy noted how easy it was for new entrants to appear. “It takes nothing to become a bike brand,” he said. “If you have one decent credit card, you can order a dozen bikes, and off you go.”
Lawsuits, layoffs, recalls
Rad faced other speed bumps including a wrongful death lawsuit, a lawsuit related to property damage, and the recall of nearly 30,000 units due to a safety issue. More recent online posts about Rad highlight customer service issues.
While Rad’s direct-to-consumer strategy was an advantage early on (shorter supply chain, bypass bike shops), it carried long-term service obligations. Rad’s scale meant there were tens of thousands of riders looking for service in markets where independent shops had to juggle labor costs, parts sourcing and warranty expectations on bikes they didn’t sell.
“It worked in the beginning, until people started having problems with proprietary parts,” said Matt Thomas, owner of The Polka Dot Jersey bike shop in Seattle.
Over time Rad had to stand up its own stores and service network to support hundreds of thousands of bikes in the wild — an expensive, operationally complex layer on top of already thin hardware margins.
Rad shut down its mobile services arm in 2022 and cut 100 jobs. Later that year, Radenbaugh stepped down as CEO. Rad pulled out of Europe starting in 2024 and closed some service shops.
Meanwhile, the company went through multiple rounds of layoffs under new CEO Phil Molyneux, the former Sony president who departed earlier this year. The company is now led by CEO Kathi Lentzsch, who previously ran Bartell Drugs as CEO before the company sold to Rite-Aid in 2020.
Hard times for hardware
Rad’s challenges reflect broader difficulties facing consumer hardware startups in the post-2022 investment climate.
“Hardware success requires patient capital as it will take a long time and money to build an enduring brand,” said Clayton Wood, former CEO of Seattle-based cooking automation startup Picnic. “That capital is very scarce in the last few years.”
Wood noted that pre-2022, venture capital focused on creating unicorns, and hardware companies could raise on high valuations because of high price points and gross profits. “In 2022 the game changed, leaving anyone who raised prior with overvalued companies,” he said. It’s easier to pivot in software, he said, but hardware has high production setup and development costs.
Amish Patel, managing director at Conduit Venture Labs, a hardware-focused startup studio, also pointed out structural challenges.
Patel said consumer hardware companies with unit-margin-based business models face particular challenges. Hardware brands selling $250+ products rely almost entirely on consumer demand and scale, he said, and when margins tighten — with no software, service, or subscription revenue to offset — the business becomes extremely fragile.
“Add together over-ordering from the boom, inventory risk as demand cooled, high interest and debt servicing costs — and you get classic hardware scaling pain,” Patel said.
Rad’s funding rounds may have been seen as a sign of strength. But others see it differently.
“It just seemed weird that a company like that couldn’t stand on its own without huge cash influxes,” said David Johnson, owner of Electric & Folding Bikes Northwest. “It just didn’t seem sustainable.”
Thomas, the owner at Polka Dot, shared a similar sentiment.
“I don’t quite understand why anyone thought during the pandemic that they were going to sustain a 500% increase in business year-over-year for five years,” he said. “I mean, I own a bike shop. I’m not an analyst. But that one didn’t seem too hard to figure out.”
GeekWire contacted Vadon and Cavens for comment, but have not heard back. The company’s other investors include Fidelity Management & Research Company, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Cercano Management, Durable Capital Partners LP, The Rise Fund (TPG’s multi-sector global impact investing strategy), and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates.
The future of e-bikes
Rad wasn’t the only e-bike maker to struggle. Europe’s VanMoof filed for bankruptcy in 2023, while Belgium-based Cowboy and other rivals have struggled to find footing after pandemic-era highs. Some cite tariffs as a headwind.
But bike shop owners say e-bike demand remains strong. “We had three people today come in asking about e-bikes,” said Clancy of Westside Bicycle.
The U.S. e-bike market is expected to reach $87.1 billion by 2032, up from $54.1 billion in 2025, according to MarketsandMarkets.
Rad says its team is working to “stabilize the business” and explore options for a long-term path forward. The company is still selling bikes and is promoting a Black Friday sale on its site.
“They are a good quality company that makes good bikes,” said Taylor, of Electric Bike Report. “And I do think the industry is better with them here.”
Editor’s Note: GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook created this column by recording themselves discussing the topic, asking AI to draft a piece based on their conversation, and then reviewing and editing the copy before publishing. Listen to the raw audio below.
If we look out GeekWire’s office window right now, down at Seattle’s Burke-Gilman Trail, we can practically guarantee one thing: if we wait 5 minutes, at least one Rad Power Bike will zip past. Probably more. They are ubiquitous — the “Tesla of e-bikes” that seemed to redefine urban transport during the pandemic.
But that physical prominence masks a brutal business reality.
In the last few weeks, the Seattle tech scene has been rocked by two stories that feel like different verses of the same sad song, as documented by GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser. First, Glowforge — the maker of high-end 3D laser printers — went into receivership and was restructured. Then came the news that Rad Power Bikes might be forced to close entirely.
We’ve each covered the Seattle region’s tech ecosystem for around 25 years, and if there is one enduring truth in the Pacific Northwest, it is that hardware is not only hard, as the old saying goes, but for some reason it seems harder here.
It is naturally harder to manipulate atoms than digits. If Windows has a bug, Microsoft pushes an update. If a Rad Power Bike has a busted tire or a faulty component, you can’t fix it with a line of code. You need a supply chain, a mechanic, and a physical presence.
But the struggles of Rad and Glowforge go beyond the physical manufacturing challenges. They are victims of two specific traps: the quirks of the pandemic and the curse of too much capital.
Both companies were born before the pandemic, but they boomed during it. When the world locked down, the thesis for both companies looked invincible. We were all sitting at home in our PJs, desperate for a hobby — so why not buy a Glowforge and laser-print trinkets? We were wary of public transit and looking for recreation — so why not buy an e-bike?
Many tech companies, including giants like Amazon and Zoom, bet big that these behavioral changes were permanent. They weren’t. And we are seeing some of the indigestion of that period play out with massive layoffs at tech companies that got too big, too fast during the pandemic years.
The world went back to normal, or at least found a new normal, but in the meantime these companies had scaled for a reality that no longer exists.
Then there is the money. In 2021, Rad Power Bikes raised over $300 million.
When you raise that kind of cash, you are no longer allowed to be a nice, profitable niche business. You have to be a platform. You have to be a world-changer. Rad tried to build a massive ecosystem, including direct-to-consumer retail stores and mobile service vans to fix bikes in people’s driveways.
Building a physical service network is agonizingly expensive. Had they raised less and stayed focused on being a great bike maker, we might be having a different conversation. But venture capital demands a “Tesla-sized” outcome, and that pressure can crush a consumer hardware company.
History tells us we shouldn’t be surprised. Seattle has a painful relationship with consumer hardware. We’ve got one word for you: Zune. Or how about the Fire Phone? Or Vicis, the high-tech football helmet maker that crashed and burned.
For those with long memories, the current situation rhymes with the saga of Terabeam in the early 2000s. They raised over $500 million to beam internet data through the air using lasers. It was a B2B play, not consumer, but the pattern was identical: massive hype, massive capital, and a technology that was difficult to deploy in the real world. They eventually sold for a fraction of what they raised.
We still love seeing those bikes on the Burke-Gilman. But in this economy, with inflation squeezing discretionary spending, $1,500 e-bikes and $4,000 laser printers are a tough sell.
Seattle may be the cloud capital of the world, but when it comes to consumer hardware, we’re still learning that you can’t just download a profit margin.
Thoughts on this story-writing approach? Email: todd@geekwire.com and john@geekwire.com.
Seattle-based electric-bike maker Rad Power Bikes, which grew into the leading e-bike seller in North America during the pandemic, is fighting for survival as it faces “significant financial challenges,” the company confirmed on Monday.
Rad filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) with the Washington state Employment Security Department on Friday. A company spokesperson told GeekWire the filing was part of “advance written notice of a potential cessation of operations that could occur as early as January 2026.”
The closure would spell the end of the company and mark a stunning collapse for Rad Power Bikes, which was once Seattle’s highest-profile consumer hardware startup, riding pandemic-era e-bike demand to unicorn status.
According to the WARN filing, a shutdown would impact 64 jobs at Rad’s headquarters location in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Affected positions include the company’s CEO, CFO, multiple director-level roles, customer service reps, and bike mechanics. Rad also operates retail locations in nine cities in the U.S. and Canada.
“No final decisions have been made, and these notices are precautionary,” the Rad spokesperson said. “Rad’s leadership is actively pursuing all viable options to keep the company operating.”
Those options include funding to keep the company moving forward or an acquisition of Rad, which has raised more than $329 million to date. One “very promising deal” was close to completion and appeared likely to close, but did not “come to fruition.”
In a letter to employees (below), the company said that it “did not anticipate the sudden drop in consumer demand from Covid-era peaks” and that in addition it was dealing with challenges “in the form of tariffs and the macroeconomic landscape.”
According to the letter, a collective mantra has emerged at the company: “Save Rad.” For years, the slogan of choice has been “Ride Rad.”
The company is still selling bikes on its website and promoting deals for Black Friday.
The filing with the state is in compliance with Washington’s Mini-WARN Act, which went into effect July 27, and “requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees in the state to provide 60 days’ advance written notice for mass layoffs or business closures impacting 50 or more employees.”
Rad was conceived in 2007 by co-founders Mike Radenbaugh and Ty Collins, who met as students at Humboldt State University in Northern California and built their first e-bike together. After years of doing custom conversions of traditional bikes to electric, they launched their company as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2015.
Rad saw big demand amid the pandemic as more people bought e-bikes. Its sales and workforce surged and it raised more than $300 million from investors in 2021. The company was valued at $1.65 billion that year, according to PitchBook, making it one of a handful of “unicorn” startups in the Seattle region at the time.
Rad operates out of a headquarters and flagship retail location on NW 52nd Street in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.
The company is currently led by CEO Kathi Lentzsch, who previously ran Bartell Drugs as CEO before the company sold to Rite-Aid in 2020. She also led companies including Gump’s and Elephant Pharmacy, and held exec roles at Enesco, Pottery Barn and World Market.
Lentzsch replaced Phil Molyneux, the former Sony president who stepped down earlier this year after leading Rad for more than two years.
Seattle entrepreneurs Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon, who helped grow online retail giants Blue Nile and Zulily, invested in Rad in 2019.
The company raised $25 million in 2020, led by Vulcan Capital and Durable Capital Partners LP, and by May of that year as the pandemic took hold, Rad was fielding a 297% increase in demand due to rapid changes in consumer transportation and exercise habits.
As the global electric bike market exploded, Rad took on another $150 million in 2021 from big-name investors such as Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, The Rise Fund, the global impact investing platform managed by TPG, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates.
Later that year, as ridership surged, Rad raised another $154 million.
In April 2022, the company began a series a layoffs, slashing 100 jobs from its 725-person workforce as part of what it described as a restructuring. Another 63 employees were cut in July, and more followed in December.
Radenbaugh stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Molyneux, who was hired as president and COO earlier in 2022. Collins had resigned in 2021.
Layoffs continued into 2023 and 2024, and the company stopped selling its bikes to customers in the United Kingdom and European Union.
Rad’s struggles come amid a broader cooling of the e-bike market. Europe’s VanMoof filed for bankruptcy in 2023, while Belgium-based Cowboy and other rivals have struggled to find sustainable footing after pandemic-era highs. Rising costs, tariffs and other factors have forced several electric-bike makers to downsize or seek buyers.
Copy of the letter the company sent to Rad Power Bikes employees:
As you are aware, Rad Power Bikes Inc. (“Rad”) has faced economic challenges following the pandemic impacts. Like other companies in the traditional and e-bike industry, Rad did not anticipate the sudden drop in consumer demand from Covid-era peaks. Rad has made significant progress in selling down the substantial excess inventory of finished goods built up during Covid and has been working to minimize its liabilities for raw materials purchased during or shortly after Covid. However, Rad continues to face significant financial challenges, including in the form of tariffs and the macroeconomic landscape.
For the past several months, executive leadership has explored different ways to continue Rad’s business, including strategic partnerships with other companies that could acquire the company or provide funding so the company could keep moving forward. Until recently, one such option seemed very promising and appeared to be likely to close. Unfortunately, that did not come to fruition. Leadership is still working to find other viable options to keep the Rad brand alive. The collective mantra has been and will continue to be, “Save Rad.”
Rad is nothing without its people and wants to ensure that all employees are taken care of and provided for to the fullest extent feasible. Executive leaders are hopeful that a viable solution will be found to ensure that Rad team members remain gainfully employed for the foreseeable future. However, to be fully transparent, despite our collective efforts, it is possible that this may not happen, and Rad may be forced to cease operations. In the event that occurs, Rad is providing this notice to you to satisfy any obligation that may exist under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and the State of Washington’s “mini-WARN” Act (collectively “the WARN Acts”). While Rad hopes this notice is ultimately unnecessary and does not concede that the WARN Acts apply or that notice is required, the company nonetheless wishes to provide as much notice of the potential closure as possible.
To be clear, Rad’s leaders are still fighting to find ways to continue and emphasize that the cessation of Rad’s operations is not a foregone conclusion. What we do now as a team can impact the mission to Save Rad. Rad needs every team member to keep providing excellent service to keep fighting.
In the event the company is forced to close, Rad would be required to cease operations on January 9, 2026 or within 14 days thereafter. In that case, Rad expects that any cessation of operations will affect all locations and departments, will be permanent in nature, and that all employees will be terminated effective January 9, 2026. The cessation of Rad’s operations would not be the result of relocation or contracting out the company’s operations or the affected employees’ positions. The affected Washington state employees (listed below) are not represented by any union and there are no bumping rights applicable to the affected employees.
Pursuant to the WARN Acts, this notice is applicable only to those employees assigned to the Seattle office located at 1121 NW 52nd Street, Seattle, WA 98107, or remote employees reporting to the Seattle office. However, Rad has elected to notify all employees, regardless of location, and provide the same information regarding Rad’s financial situation and potential next steps. All other locations employ less than 50 individuals and are not subject to the WARN Acts’ formal notice requirements.
Rad’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification:
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