Allbirds is gone. In its place is Smartbird — an AI infrastructure company that still trades under the ticker BIRD, and whose stock jumped 39% on Wednesday after the rebrand was made official.
The company sold the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group in March for $39 million. That deal cleared the way for a full pivot to AI data-center services, which the company had telegraphed back in April. When it first announced the AI pivot, BIRD stock surged nearly 600% in a single day — though it has since pulled back around 68% from that peak.
Wednesday’s 39% move brings the stock up roughly 25% for the year.
Nadia Carlsten has been appointed CEO to lead the new direction. She brings a technical background that includes a doctorate in engineering, a stint leading product at Amazon Web Services’ quantum computing lab, and a previous CEO role at AI platform DCAI. She has also advised the World Economic Forum on AI and computing.
Carlsten replaces Joe Vernachio, who is stepping down. Annie Mitchell stays on as CFO, and Lily Yan Hughes has been appointed as board chair.
The company’s model is to deploy custom chip clusters for clients rather than building out large-scale infrastructure speculatively. The idea is to reduce upfront costs and give midmarket businesses access to dedicated AI compute they can’t easily get from major cloud providers — whether due to cost or security concerns.
Smartbird says it is already in active discussions with potential customers and is designing its first cluster deployments.
To fund the buildout, the company has expanded a previously announced convertible bond facility from $50 million to $100 million. The proceeds are earmarked for acquiring graphics processors.
The market cap context is hard to ignore. BIRD once peaked near a $4 billion valuation following its 2021 IPO. As of Tuesday’s close — before the Wednesday pop — it sat at just $35 million.
Now it is competing in a space dominated by CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius Group (NBIS), companies worth tens of billions of dollars with deep pockets and established infrastructure.
Carlsten acknowledged the challenge directly: “AI is rapidly becoming mission-critical for organizations across every industry. Yet many organizations lack a practical path to deploy and operate the dedicated infrastructure these workloads require.”
Whether Smartbird can carve out a lane in that market remains to be seen. For now, the company says it has the capital, a new strategy, and a CEO with the right resume to try.
The convertible bond expansion to $100 million is the most recent concrete financial move on the table.
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