• From $4.1 billion shoe IPO to AI pivot
• Rebranding to Smartbird and closing the door on footwear
• New CEO, new business model
• A late entrant in a crowded AI infrastructure race

Allbirds Rebrands as Smartbird, Pivots to AI Compute Allbirds, once a darling of sustainable footwear, has now shed its shoe business and identity to chase the AI infrastructure boom, reemerging as “Smartbird” under new leadership.

§From $4.1 billion shoe IPO to AI pivot

The company went public in 2021 at a $4.1 billion valuation as a direct-to-consumer shoe brand focused on sustainability. But by April 2026, it announced plans to sell its shoe business for $39 million and reinvent itself as a GPU cloud provider under the interim name NewBird AI. That surprise pivot triggered a frenzy in financial markets, sending the stock up 582% in a single session before most of those gains evaporated in the following weeks.

§Rebranding to Smartbird and closing the door on footwear

On June 17, the company completed the sale of the Allbirds brand and formally renamed itself Smartbird, marking a clean break from its consumer retail origins. What remains is essentially the stock listing and a new strategic mission to offer access to AI infrastructure and enterprise-focused AI systems, rather than physical products.

§New CEO, new business model

Smartbird has appointed Nadia Carlsten as president and CEO to lead the transition. Carlsten previously ran Denmark’s Centre for AI Innovation, where she helped launch the Gefion AI supercomputer in partnership with Nvidia, and earlier worked at Amazon Web Services on quantum computing services.

The company plans to provide managed AI infrastructure by leasing GPU compute to enterprise customers under long-term arrangements. To fund this shift, it doubled its convertible financing facility from $50 million to $100 million, a move that could dilute existing shareholders but signals commitment to the new strategy.

§A late entrant in a crowded AI infrastructure race

Smartbird faces formidable competition from established “neocloud” players like CoreWeave, Nscale, and IREN, all of which pivoted from crypto mining but already possessed substantial data center infrastructure before chasing AI valuations in the tens of billions. In contrast, Smartbird is entering the market with no existing data centers, customers, or revenue in its new line of business, betting that its leadership and fresh capital can overcome a significant head start held by rivals.

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