Summary
- Allbirds has divested its footwear division and rebranded itself as Smartbird, a provider of AI infrastructure.
- Nadia Carlsten, an expert in AI compute infrastructure, is appointed as president and CEO.
- The company has increased its convertible financing facility to $100 million to support its AI transformation.
Allbirds, formerly recognized for its sustainable footwear, is completely transitioning away from its shoe business to become an artificial intelligence infrastructure company under the new name Smartbird.
The San Francisco-based firm, listed on Nasdaq with the ticker BIRD, announced on Wednesday that it has finalized the sale of its Allbirds shoe and clothing line, as initially revealed in April, and appointed Nadia Carlsten, a notable figure in the AI and advanced computing sector, as its new president, CEO, and board member.
The market responded favorably to this news, with BIRD shares surging 52% to a current price of $5.99. Earlier in April, the stock climbed from $2.49 to a peak of $24.31 before retracting some of those gains. Nonetheless, BIRD is still up 46% year-to-date.
Carlsten joins from DCAI, a GPU compute infrastructure firm where she served as CEO and was instrumental in launching a sovereign AI supercomputer with Nvidia. Her background includes positions at Google spinoff SandboxAQ and Amazon Web Services, where she contributed to the introduction of Amazon's quantum computing service. She holds degrees in chemistry and physics from the University of Virginia, along with a doctorate in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
She takes over from Joe Vernachio, who is resigning from the company and its board. Lily Yan Hughes has been appointed as the new chair of the board, while Annie Mitchell continues as chief financial officer. Initially, the company considered the name NewBird AI before settling on Smartbird.
In a statement, Carlsten remarked, "Smartbird is entering the market at a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI infrastructure. AI is rapidly becoming essential for organizations across all sectors, yet many lack the practical means to deploy and manage the infrastructure these workloads necessitate.”
She further stated, “There is a clear opportunity to address the increasing demand for enterprise-grade AI infrastructure that provides control and performance without the financial and operational burdens of hardware ownership. With a unique strategy, ample capital, and the chance to assemble an outstanding team, we are well-positioned to take advantage of one of the most significant infrastructure opportunities of the next decade.”
As part of this transition, the company has expanded its convertible financing facility from $50 million to $100 million, providing Smartbird with additional resources to create what it describes as managed, dedicated AI computing clusters for business clients. The company is actively engaging with potential customers and planning its initial cluster deployments.