I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Allbirds has completed its pivot to AI infrastructure, rebranding as Smartbird. The company sold its shoe business for $43 million and raised $100 million via the stock market. Nadia Carlsten, a former AWS executive, was appointed CEO. Smartbird will focus on providing direct server control for AI models, targeting sectors like pharmaceuticals, finance, and the public sector.
Allbirds has completed its shift into Smartbird as the former direct-to-consumer shoe company moves into AI infrastructure. The company sold its shoe business for $43 million, raised another $100 million from the stock market, and appointed Nadia Carlsten, a former AWS executive with an engineering PhD, as CEO.
Carlsten said Smartbird will focus on customers that want more direct control over the servers running their AI models, particularly where data sovereignty, bespoke models, or sensitive workloads matter. She pointed to potential demand from industries such as pharmaceuticals, energy, finance, and the public sector, while saying the company could deploy compute clusters for several customers by the end of the year.
For investors, the pivot could be an unusual AI infrastructure bet following Allbirds' troubled consumer-brand chapter. Carlsten said the strategy was not simply about chasing AI hype, but about whether Smartbird can build a niche business over time with real weight behind the move.