Allbirds Rebrands as ‘Smartbird’ in Pivot to AI Infrastructure Allbirds’ transformation from eco-friendly sneaker icon to AI infrastructure hopeful has unfolded over just a few frenetic months, turning a struggling retail brand into a speculative bet on the GPU boom.

From shoe craze to stock stunt

Allbirds, once a direct‑to‑consumer darling that went public at a $4.1 billion valuation in 2021, began its tech pivot in April when it announced plans to sell its shoe business and become a GPU cloud provider under the name NewBird AI. The initial announcement sent the stock soaring more than 500% in a single session, prompting comparisons to meme‑stock plays that “latch onto the hottest fad” to juice share prices.

By mid‑2024, the company had agreed to sell its Allbirds footwear brand and related assets for what ultimately totaled $43 million, effectively divesting the core business that made it famous.

Rebranding to Smartbird and raising cash

On June 17, the company formally rebranded again—this time from NewBird AI to Smartbird—and completed the sale of the Allbirds brand as it shifted focus to “offering access to AI infrastructure and enterprise-focused AI systems.” The rebrand “completes a transformation” into an AI compute provider, with shares jumping more than 50% on the news before pulling back.

To fund the pivot, Smartbird doubled a convertible financing facility from $50 million to $100 million, raising fresh capital but also exposing existing shareholders to potential dilution.

New CEO, no staff, and a crowded field

Smartbird appointed Nadia Carlsten—an engineer who previously led Denmark’s AI Centre, launched the Gefion supercomputer with Nvidia, and worked at Amazon Web Services—as president and CEO. As of her first week, Carlsten described the company as a “startup with a sole founder and a very large seed round,” focused on hiring a leadership team and securing an office while the “shoe business has officially closed.”

Smartbird plans to lease managed GPU infrastructure to enterprises that need tight control over servers and data sovereignty, positioning itself against hyperscalers and well‑funded neocloud rivals that already operate large data centers. Unlike those incumbents, Smartbird starts with no data centers, customers, or revenue in its new line of business—leaving investors to bet that its late, unconventional pivot can still pay off.

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