Allbirds rebrands to Smartbird; hires ex-AWS executive as new CEO in AI pivot

Allbirds Inc. has officially changed its name to Smartbird Inc. as part of a complete corporate pivot from sustainable footwear into an artificial intelligence infrastructure provider

The shoe brand company changed its name to Smartbird on Wednesday and appointed former Amazon Web Servies executive Nadia Carlsten as president and CEO, cementing the former footwear maker's pivot ‌to an AI infrastructure firm.

The company had said in April it was shifting its focus to offer cloud computing capacity and AI services, leading to a more than five-fold surge in its shares.

Carlsten brings AI and quantum computing experience from DCAI, Alphabet spinoff SandboxAQ, and Amazon Web Services, and has advised the World Economic Forum on computing and AI.

She will take over from Joe Vernachio, who is resigning from the company. Annie Mitchell will continue to serve as the chief financial officer, and Lily Yan Hughes has been appointed board chair.

Smartbird said it provides AI infrastructure as a managed service to ‌save upfront equipment costs for clients. It is in active discussions with potential customers and is designing its first cluster deployments.

"With a differentiated strategy, significant capital, and the opportunity to build an exceptional team, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on one of the most significant infrastructure opportunities of the next decade," Carlsten said.

The company also said it had expanded its convertible financing agreement to $100 million from $50 million and had previously indicated it would use the proceeds to acquire graphics processors.

Allbirds shut most of its brick-and-mortar stores and sold its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million in March.

Previously, Allbirds, the former minimalist shoe company that briefly surged in popularity among Silicon Valley tech workers a decade ago, announced it would suddenly become an “AI compute and cloud services company."

The shoe company further said that its selling its branding and footwear assets and rechristening itself “NewBird AI” and causing its cratering stock to jump over 800% after the announcement.

Importantly, Allbird completely exited the footwear sector by selling its brand and retail inventory to American Exchange Group for $39 million.

While, the newly restructured AI infrastructure business will continue to trade on the Nasdaq under its original ticker symbol, BIRD.