Allbirds pivots from sustainable shoes to AI infrastructure, stock surges 580% in single day

Bubble watch: Fashion brand Allbirds pivots hard to become AI services company

If you know the name Allbirds, it's probably for the company's longstanding stated commitment to "sustainable shoes and apparel." Going forward, though, the corporate entity wants to be known for its "long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." In a news release Wednesday morning, Allbirds announced that it has secured a $50 million convertible finance facility to help power this unexpected "pivot ... to AI compute infrastructure." If all goes to plan, the company will soon be known as NewBird AI, by which point it will presumably change the image of a spandex-clad hiker that still sits atop its News Release page. Just weeks ago, Allbirds announced the $39 million sale of the "Allbirds brand and footwear assets" to American Exchange Group, owner of Aerosoles, Ecko Unlimited, and other fashion brands. Today's AI pivot announcement certainly casts that sale in a new light. But Allbirds also announced a new line of colorful Canvas Cruiser shoes just last week, so it's unclear how much long-term planning went into this new AI-related direction. In an SEC filing accompanying the announcement, Allbirds notes that it is still "investigating potential opportunities in the computing infrastructure market, including the acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads... and other related assets." That kind of "we're looking into it" phrasing certainly suggests a panicked move into the hot investment sector of the moment more than a carefully considered plan to really differentiate itself in that market.

After sale of its shoe business, Allbirds pivots to AI | TechCrunch

After selling its shoe brand and assets last month for $39 million, Allbirds is pivoting to AI. Of course, the company is also changing its name, since the footwear brand "Allbirds" was part of the sale. Introducing: NewBird AI, a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider," the company announced via its investor relations site on Wednesday. The rebranded AI company also announced a $50 million investment from an undisclosed institutional investor in the form of a convertible financing facility. It's objectively pretty funny that Allbirds is becoming an AI company -- not because it's unusual for companies to pivot, but because of how extreme this pivot is. The maker of the shoes once craved by the Silicon Valley tech set is now going to be a provider of GPUs. It's somewhat absurd -- and risky -- but you can see how the business came to this decision. After the asset and brand sale, Allbirds can keep the public company's shell (it's been traded on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "BIRD") and then reuse it to invest in the hot AI sector. This recalls the time in 2017 when the Long Island Iced Tea company pivoted to the blockchain, prompting the stock to jump some 275% after the rebranding. That pivot didn't pan out, as the NASDAQ stock exchange delisted the stock the following year after Bitcoin fever died down. Allbirds-turned-NewBird is likely hoping for a different outcome. The company says that the financing and the asset sale are still subject to stockholder approval, with a meeting planned to take place on May 18. If the sale goes through, stockholders will receive a dividend during the third quarter. The new owner of the Allbirds brand and assets, American Exchange Group, will continue to make products for Allbirds customers. Meanwhile, NewBird AI plans to use the new financing to acquire GPU assets, which it will offer to customers seeking AI compute capacity. Over time, the company hopes to grow its service offerings through partnerships and even strategic mergers and acquisitions -- if the opportunity arises.

Allbirds Is Pivoting to AI Compute. Sure, Why Not

On April 7, Allbirds sent out a press release celebrating its new "canvas cruiser" collection and a partnership with Pantone, the color company. One week later, on April 15, Allbirds sent out a press release announcing that the brand will "pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure." AI comes at you fast. In fairness, it's been an eventful month for Allbirds. The startup's fall from grace has been long-brewing and well-documented, but here's the short version. While its comfortable-yet-presentable footwear propelled it to a $4 billion valuation when it went public in 2021, its sales never quite matched the hype. After years of financial losses, it finally sold whatever was left of its intellectual property to American Exchange Group, a "brand management" company that also owns the likes of Aerosoles and Ed Hardy. The price: $39 million. That was March 30. And now? American Exchange Group will presumably work to revitalize the Allbirds apparel business, starting with those canvas cruisers. But Allbirds itself will focus its efforts on turning a $50 million cash infusion (or "convertible financing facility") into "high-performance GPU assets," eventually building out a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." As befits a reinvention of this magnitude, Allbirds will also get a new name, NewBird AI. Allbirds is hardly the only company to pivot to compute. Boom Supersonic is trying to build the world's fastest airliner, but will gladly sell its Superpower gas turbines to AI companies in need of data center energy. Most bitcoin mining companies got on the AI train months ago. Even Nvidia's GPUs were originally a staple of gaming PCs. Allbirds appears to be the first, though, that got its start with a minimalist sneaker made from responsibly sourced Merino wool. It's true that the thirst for compute -- processing data for AI -- is nigh insatiable. Somebody's got to slake it; might as well be a shoe company. "Enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations are unable to secure the compute resources they need to build, train and run AI at scale," Allbirds' press release reads. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap." It's unclear what exactly NewBird AI is bringing to the table beyond the cash to buy a bunch of GPUs. Maybe these days that's all it takes. This is all pending shareholder approval, but for what it's worth, investors love the move; Allbirds stock popped 400 percent on the news. AllBirds did not respond to a request for comment. If nothing else, the move perfectly encapsulates this extended moment of AI frenzy. Startups used to make things; now they buy processors. Warby Parker, you're on notice.

Allbirds announced a switch from shoes to AI and its stock jumped 600 percent

Allbirds had a hit a decade ago with its Wool Runner shoes, but after a $4 billion IPO in 2021, the business never turned a profit, and sales dropped nearly 50 percent between 2022 and 2025. The company recently announced it would sell off its name and assets for $39 million to American Exchange after closing the remaining stores. That shell listing, however, still has some use as the Financial Times points out, and now CEO Joe Vernachio has announced a plan to raise $50 million from an unnamed investor, which will turn NewBird AI into "a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider."

Struggling shoemaker and apparel brand Albird pivots to AI data centers, stock jumps 580% in a single day -- sells core business and leveraging $50 million in financing to become a GPU-as-a-Service and AI cloud solutions provider

The company decided that it wants to peddle the "shovels" of the AI goldrush instead of selling shoes and sweaters. Allbirds, a struggling apparel and footwear brand, announced a bizarre pivot to AI data centers after selling its core business to American Exchange Group, sending its shares shyrocketing 580% in a single day. The company said that it has come to a "definitive agreement" with an institutional investor who will give the company a $50-million infusion through a convertible financing facility expected to close during the second quarter of 2026. This should give it enough funding to become a "GPU-as-a-service" and AI cloud solutions provider, allowing it to join the AI bandwagon and ride the wave of popularity of AI data centers. It also anticipates changing its name from Allbirds to NewBird AI, signaling its intent to do a complete reversal of its business direction. "NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the Facility to acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity," Allbirds said in its announcement. "NewBird AI's long-term vision is to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider. Over time, the Company intends to grow its neocloud platform by expanding its compute and service offerings, deepening partnerships with operators and customers, and evaluating strategic M&A opportunities." Despite various experts and industry leaders' concerns of an AI bubble, it seems that Allbirds (or Newbird AI) and its investor see an opportunity to break into AI infrastructure. It said that even as the AI infrastructure build-out is going at a breakneck pace, data center vacancies in the U.S. are at historic lows, and even compute capacity slated to come online through the first half of the year is already fully committed. So, it plans to take advantage of the situation and deliver computing power that the spot market and hyperscalers are currently unable to meet. This isn't the first company to join the bandwagon of a lucrative new industry after seeing its fortunes fail in its current market. We saw this with Bitfarm, a major Bitcoin mining firm, which announced that it will fully abandon crypto mining by 2027 and leverage its existing infrastructure to become an AI data center and offer GPUaaS to interested clients. Bitfarm's business is somewhat related to AI data centers, so this pivot makes sense. But because Allbirds comes from a completely different segment, this announcement came as a shock to everyone. Aside from the press release, there is no clear direction or plan from the company yet on how it intends to achieve its goal of building its own data center. Even then, the company's stock price skyrocketed from an average trading price of around $2.50 and peaked at more than $23 before settling at around $18 at the time of writing. This is a massive upside for a company that, just a few months ago, closed all its full-price stores in the U.S. and saw its sales fall by 50% in the past three years. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Allbirds Soars 373% After Sneaker Firm Rebrands as AI Stock

Allbirds Inc. shares more than quadrupled after the former shoemaker, just days away from ceasing operations, said it would pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure. The struggling company executed a $50 million convertible financing facility to fund the switch as it targets becoming a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. The company also plans to change its name to "NewBird AI." The San Fransisco-based company had already inked a deal to sell off its footwear assets in March. "The move exits a structurally lower footwear and apparel model for a higher-value compute business, though execution risk remains high," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal wrote in a noteBloomberg Terminal. The company has potential to "improve its long-term margin profile if the transition is executed well." It's not the first struggling company to pivot into a buzzy new industry in the hopes of recapturing shareholder value. In 2024, Core Scientific Inc. turned its attention away from Bitcoin mining to AI and last year a handful of biotechnology companies made the switch into digital assets to varying degrees of success. Allbirds is selling its footwear assets to American Exchange Group, whose brand portfolio includes Aerosoles, and had planned to cease operations sometime in April. Shares have tumbled every year since their 2021 debut, with its market value closing at about $22 million on Tuesday.

Allbirds lacks footing for dramatic AI pivot

NEW YORK, April 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - After failing to sustain its eco-friendly sneaker empire, Allbirds (BIRD.O), opens new tab has an even woolier proposition. The company, once valued at more than $4 billion, sold, opens new tab what remains of its footwear business last month for just $39 million, and is now racing into, opens new tab the world of artificial intelligence. These sorts of bizarre pivots work occasionally, but the odds are long. Some modern corporate giants have sprouted from highly unusual seeds. South Korean smartphone and chip maker Samsung once exported dried fish while Nokia made the unlikely switch from rubber-boot manufacturing to wireless telecom. India's Wipro started by selling cooking oil before becoming an IT powerhouse. Shell is so named because of its origins as a collectibles shop where ⁠founder Marcus Samuel once sold, opens new tab decorative sea-creature coverings before it later commissioned the first oil tanker to traverse the Suez Canal. Most such ambitious metamorphoses flop, however. They suffer from a lack of management skill, capital, luck, competition and myriad other factors. After all, defeat is the eventual fate for most ventures, and the bigger the gambit the lower the chance for success. Jumping onto the latest bandwagon, as Allbirds is doing, also tends to be little more than a gimmick, or worse. The Long Island Iced Tea Corp, for example, attracted investors in 2021 after it rebranded as Long Blockchain to take advantage of cryptocurrency mania. Its shares were later delisted, and the Securities and Exchange Commission brought insider trading charges, opens new tab. In addition to raising $50 million in convertible ⁠financing, Allbirds is playing the name game, too. It will now be known as NewBird AI, with a "long term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider." The microscopic stock price jumped 620% on Wednesday. It's unclear what the company brings to the crowded and heavily capitalized world of data centers. CoreWeave (CRWV.O), opens new tab, for one, is worth 400 times as much, has close ties with ⁠Nvidia and just expanded chunky deals with Jane Street and Anthropic. Despite this progress, it is not clear what advantage it has over deep-pocketed and technologically advantaged rivals such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab. In this context, NewBird AI looks like a considerable longshot. Its shoes may have ⁠spread across Silicon Valley, but it will take more than a few dollars and a dream to get off the backfoot. Follow Robert Cyran on Bluesky, opens new tab. Context News Editing by Jeffrey Goldfarb; Production by Maya Nandhini * Suggested Topics: * Breakingviews Breakingviews Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time. Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on X @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors. Robert Cyran Thomson Reuters Robert Cyran, U.S. tech columnist, joined Breakingviews in London in 2003 and moved four years later to New York, where he continues to cover global technology, pharmaceuticals and special situations. Robert began his career at Forbes magazine, where he assisted in the startup of the international version of the magazine. Before working at Breakingviews he worked as a market researcher and reporter covering the pharmaceutical industry. Robert has a Masters degree in economics from Birmingham University and an undergraduate degree from George Washington University.

Allbirds is turning into an AI compute provider, because of course it is

Allbirds is a San Francisco maker of wool trainers that was once valued at more than $4bn. It was sold last week for $39mn to American Exchange Group, the stock having slumped by more than 99 per cent since flotation on Nasdaq in 2021: Now the plan is . . . ... to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider. In connection with this pivot, the Company anticipates changing its name to "NewBird AI." With shareholder approval, Allbirds will be renamed NewBird AI, Inc., and will raise $50m via convertible notes from an institutional investor it doesn't identify. Shareholders who went into the stock expecting eco-friendly creps will be offered a special dividend. Here's the Schedule 14A that explains the pivot to investors ahead of a vote on May 18. It adds: With respect to the renamed corporate entity, we are investigating potential opportunities in the computing infrastructure market, including the acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads (whether from artificial intelligence and machine learning or other needs of potential future customers) and other related assets Also! Because the anticipated Electronics Infrastructure Business would be less focused on the public benefit of environmental conservation, which is stated in the Company's Certificate of Incorporation, stockholders are being asked to approve the Charter Amendment Proposal (as defined herein) to remove references to the Company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit. Premarket, on not much volume, Allbirds shares are indicated to open more than 140 per cent higher at around $6 versus Tuesday's close of $2.49. Further reading: -- Iced tea maker soars 500% after pivot to blockchain (FT)

Allbirds, a former Wall Street darling fallen on hard times, looks to AI for its future

NEW YORK (AP) -- Allbirds, the eco-friendly shoe brand that found its way onto the feet of tech CEOs and movie stars before falling on hard times, is pivoting to artificial intelligence. On Wednesday the San Francisco-based company said it had signed a definitive agreement with an unnamed institutional investor for $50 million in financing to shift its business to AI infrastructure. It will also have a new name: NewBird AI. It plans to use the proceeds to purchase graphics processing units, known as GPUs. The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of this year. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said in the release. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap." The drastic change of direction has some industry watchers scratching their heads. "On the surface, it's a strange pivot," said AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman. "I've been in this industry a while, and a company like Allbirds moving from shoes into AI infrastructure is not a very natural adjacency." It's unclear how Allbirds will reinvent itself as a "GPU-as-a-service" business that rents out computing power to AI companies. That means selling access to a huge number of graphics processors, or other specialized AI computer chips designed by companies like Nvidia or AMD, that operate in big data centers typically run by cloud computing giants like Amazon or Oracle. The business of running physical AI infrastructure "requires access to GPUs in a constrained market, long-term power agreements, advanced cooling strategies, and a credible operating model," said Kleyman, CEO and co-founder of Apolo.us. The announcement comes more than two weeks after Allbirds sold its intellectual property and certain other assets and liabilities to American Exchange Group, a leader in accessories design, licensing and manufacturing, for $39 million. The company owns such retail brands as Aerosoles, White Mountain, Jonathan Adler and Ed Hardy. That's a dramatic fall from the Allbirds' peak in valuation at $4 billion in late 2021. The company had said that it would not be issuing its quarterly earnings report that was set for March 31. The latest development marks a dramatic departure from when the company was founded in 2015 by former professional soccer player Tim Brown and renewable resources expert Joey Zwillinger. Its mission: to create footwear from natural material, not synthetics. A year later, Allbirds launched its iconic wool runner shoe. But the company overexpanded, like many dot.com brands that opened physical stores. And many consumers lost interest. In February, the brand shuttered most of its remaining stores to focus on e-commerce, partnerships with stores and international distributorship. It still operates two outlet stores in the U.S. and two full-price stores in London. Shares of Allbirds soared more than 600% on Wednesday's news, and are hovering nearly $18 in late afternoon trading. A few days ago, the stock was trading at $3. It once traded at $520 per share. Kleyman said the stock market surge looks "more like initial excitement and speculative momentum tied to anything AI rather than validation of execution." Kleyman also noted that $50 million is not a lot to enter into an infrastructure-heavy market and added that it seems everybody wants to be an AI company. "Some of those shifts are real and strategic," he said. "Others feel more reactive. In this case, I think it's fair to say it can come across as a bit desperate. The underlying business struggled, and AI presents a compelling narrative reset." -- -- AP Technology reporter Matt O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

Allbirds announces stunning pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes more than 300%

Allbirds made a surprising announcement Wednesday that it is pivoting from shoes to artificial intelligence. Shares of the company exploded more than 300% higher. In early trading, Allbirds' market cap was around $20M. The company announced that it's pivoting its business to AI compute infrastructure on Wednesday in a release posted to its investor relations page. The new company, which expects to be called NewBird AI, announced a deal to raise up to $50 million in funding, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. "The Company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service," the company said in the announcement. Last month, Allbirds announced a deal with American Exchange Group to sell its intellectual property and other assets for $39 million. American Exchange Group is a brand management company focused on the accessory space. It's expected to continue to sell products under the Allbirds brand.

Shoe company pivots to AI compute in sign of a totally normal and healthy economy

The shoe company Allbirds, famous for its wool trainers, is . You read that right. The San Francisco company has plans "to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider." It's also changing its name to NewBird AI. This is subject to shareholder approval, with a vote scheduled for May 18. Once approved, the company will raise $50 million from an unnamed investor to assist with this enterprise. This money will be used for the "acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads and other related assets." In other words, all of the things one would need to start an AI compute company. Allbirds has always been known as an and, well, there's no real way to do . The company plans on getting rid of any eco-friendly branding, with stockholders being asked to approve a charter amendment proposal to "remove references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit." Investors absolutely love AI, despite . To that end, the announcement that Allbirds was transitioning from shoes, a product category it has a decade of experience in, to AI compute, a product category it has no experience in, shot the stock up by over 400 percent. Financial Times has suggested this uptick and that retail investors should stay away. This pivot to AI cloud compute is surprising and, frankly, bizarre, but something drastic was bound to happen to Allbirds at some point. The shoe company was once riding high, with a valuation of around $4 billion as recently as 2021. It sold its shoe business and branding to an investment firm . Allbirds isn't the only company pivoting to compute in an effort to feed the . Boom Supersonic is a startup trying to build the world's fastest airliner but has begun to power data centers. Many Bitcoin mining centers and it's worth remembering that NVIDIA's GPUs were once used primarily for PC gaming.

The Allbirds Pivot Is a Terrible Idea ... Right?

Allbirds' pivot to AI could be an escape hatch for a company with nothing to lose. Walk into any Silicon Valley office in the late 2010s, and you'd probably see at least one pair of Allbirds. Woolly and eco-friendly, the sneakers once epitomized a certain kind of corporate culture (even Barack Obama was a fan), and the company behind them was valued at roughly $4 billion at its peak, in 2021. But for several years, sales have flagged. Attempts to replicate the success of its signature product -- see: wool leggings and wool underwear -- didn't do much to keep the business afloat. Earlier this year, Allbirds sold most of its holdings for pennies and closed its remaining retail stores. Now it has a last-ditch idea: a hard pivot to AI. The plan, announced yesterday, is to change its name to NewBird AI and spend $50 million from an unnamed investor on specialized chips called GPUs, which it will then lease to other companies. The move is a high-risk bid to save the company's stock, and it has already kind of worked: Allbirds' value increased by more than 600 percent yesterday. Although businesses reorient themselves around AI all the time, Allbirds is trying a far more extreme version of the strategy. At first glance, it might look like a cynical (and very possibly doomed) cash grab. But for a flailing shoe company, an AI rebrand might also be an escape hatch. Last month, Allbirds was sold for less than 1 percent of what it was worth in 2021. Because almost nothing has been spared in the fire sale, it is now essentially a shell corporation. Bloomberg's Matt Levine argued yesterday that the company might be banking on tech executives' "nostalgic fondness for their brand" to make this pivot work. But Allbirds CEO Joe Vernachio is a veteran of the outdoor-apparel industry and has no apparent AI experience; the company did not respond to questions about the future of its executive team or the future of other people who work there. There's an obvious reason for companies to jump on the AI train -- the technology is creating enormous wealth. The S&P 500 hit a record high yesterday, thanks in part to the strength of the American tech sector. And that doesn't even account for the two leading AI companies, both of which are private. OpenAI and Anthropic are valued at about $1.2 trillion combined -- more than the GDP of Poland. When those companies go public, as they're expected to in the not-too-distrant future, they will generate astounding wealth for their executives and investors. The idea that a shoe company can use an AI rebrand to quickly juice its stock price will likely strengthen naysayers' suspicions that we're in a bubble. It echoes a cautionary tale of the crypto craze: In 2017, shares of Long Island Iced Tea Corp. jumped as much as 500 percent after the company announced a pivot to blockchain technology. The highs were short-lived. A year later, Long Blockchain Corp. (it got a new name too) was delisted from the NASDAQ. When the struggling video-game retailer GameStop tried a similar crypto pivot in 2022, its stock climbed 30 percent in a day. But that ultimately didn't prevent the company's gradual descent from the meme-stock highs it had seen in 2021. The maneuver failed in the long run in part because it muddied the idea of what GameStop even was: Why was the brick-and-mortar store where I once bought Assassin's Creed III suddenly selling NFTs? But in this unprecedented market, where private lenders abound and VCs are doubling down on AI, flexibility can be a good thing. Plenty of companies have incorporated AI into their existing products over the past few years, albeit with varying levels of success. Mattel's toys will soon have AI components, PepsiCo wants to rely on AI agents to transform its sales and operations, and Bath & Body Works has used AI to develop a "fragrance finder" called Gingham Genius. Few businesses are immune to the lure of this tech, and to the potential for investment that tends to come with it. NewBird AI's lack of experience in the sector will make it difficult to turn a short-term stock bump into long-term success. Questions remain about who's investing in the business, and how effectively its leaders might continue raising money in the future. The $50 million that Allbirds has secured, with just $5 million up front, is dwarfed by what the biggest AI companies are regularly bringing in. OpenAI announced $122 billion in new funding late last month. And it's unclear whether Allbirds will command the kind of access to private credit lines that other public companies have relied on for their AI ambitions. Despite the financial promise of its new business model, Allbirds is really just a tiny, inexperienced player in an already crowded market. Perhaps accounting for traders' tempering expectations, the stock has fallen by about 25 percent today. Allbirds is now shedding much of what made it distinct during its boom years and adapting to a business climate in which raw computing power is king. Despite a founding mission to make sustainable footwear, the company is turning to a notoriously energy-intensive corner of the tech industry and likely slashing language about environmental conservation from its charter. Whether or not this rebrand succeeds, it has already underscored the absurd pull of AI -- and just how much of our economy is being drawn into its orbit. The Quiet Way Authoritarianism Begins to Crumble

Allbirds shares soar after pivot from footwear to AI

Shares in shoe brand Allbirds, once seen on the feet of famous people like actor Ben Affleck and former US President Barack Obama, soared on Wednesday after it announced plans to pivot from footwear to artificial intelligence (AI). The San Francisco-based firm said it has struck a $50m (£37m) deal to become an "AI compute infrastructure" business and change its name to NewBird AI. The announcement sent the firm's shares surging by more than 580%, though its stock market value is still more than 90% lower than when the company was first listed in 2021. Allbirds' trainers became popular among technology workers in Silicon Valley but the company faced serious challenges in recent years. NewBird AI will buy advanced graphic processing units (GPUs) - computer chips that power AI, Allbirds said in a statement. The company said it had seen a "gap in the market" that has left many businesses without enough computing power because the industry cannot keep up with demand. Its long-term plan is to offer on-demand graphics chips and cloud services that are specially built for AI, it added. The Allbirds brand will be owned by fashion conglomerate American Exchange Group, which incldes names like Ecko Unltd and Aerosoles, following a $39m deal announced in March. Allbirds chief executive Joe Vernachio said the move will allow the Wool Runner maker to "thrive in the years ahead". The footwear company was founded in 2015 by a former football player Tim Brown and a clean-technology businessman Joey Zwillinger. The firm opened dozens of shops in the US and around the world including the UK, New Zealand, China and Singapore, targeting casual joggers, office workers and yoga lovers. But the company has struggled to turn a profit since it listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York five years ago. Its stock marrket value had plummeted from a high of more than $500 a share to around $2.50 just before the AI pivot was announced.

Sneaker Company Allbirds Plans to Pivot to A.I. Yes, A.I.

After selling its business for $39 million last month, the company said it planned to buy powerful computer chips and rebrand itself NewBird AI. After agreeing to sell all its assets last month for less than 1 percent of its previous $4 billion valuation, the shoe company Allbirds announced on Wednesday that it would "pivot its business" to artificial intelligence. The company, once the maker of Silicon Valley's favorite shoe (a Merino wool sneaker symbolized the venture capital boom of the 2010s), went public in 2021. Five years later, after struggling to capture a wide customer base and turn a profit, Allbirds sold its business to a brand management company for $39 million. In a statement, the company, which is based in San Francisco, said that an unnamed investor had agreed to spend $50 million to finance a shift to A.I. infrastructure. That money, the company said, will be used to buy graphics processing units, known as GPUs, powerful chips that can run calculations and analyze enormous amounts of data. (The amount is a drop in the bucket for an industry that measures spending in the tens of billions and even trillions.) The business, no longer in sneakers, will also have a new name: NewBird AI. "The rise of A.I. development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said. It added that developers and research groups were struggling to secure the resources needed to build, train and run A.I. at scale. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap," the company said. On Wednesday, the company's stock rose by nearly 600 percent, closing at $16.99. A few days ago, the stock was trading at less than $3. For more than a year, investors have flocked to, and driven up, A.I. stocks. In recent years, several companies have pivoted in an attempt to capitalize on a data-center construction boom tied to the fast-growing A.I. industry. In 2019, as cryptocurrency prices slid, the company Atlantic Crypto renamed its business CoreWeave, betting that GPU chips would eventually feed the development of artificial intelligence, whose creation also requires substantial computing power. When OpenAI released the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022 and unleashed an A.I. frenzy, the demand for computing power exploded. In September, OpenAI signed a deal with the tech giant Oracle to build $300 billion in computer infrastructure that people with knowledge of the deal said would be used to develop artificial intelligence technologies. But Allbirds is making a far starker pivot, said Bill Kleyman, an A.I. infrastructure expert and the chief executive of Apolo.us, which builds tools to develop A.I. "At first it read like a really well-executed April Fools' joke," Mr. Kleyman said of the Allbirds announcement. But, he added, "given the craziness of this industry right now, maybe we shouldn't be surprised." Other companies that had made the leap to A.I. were, in most cases, beginning with similar infrastructure, Mr. Kleyman said. Allbirds' plan seemed more like a complete reset, and one that would most likely require far more than a $50 million investment to get off the ground, he added. "Every company wants to be an A.I. company -- some of those shifts are real and strategic, others feel a lot more reactive," Mr. Kleyman said. "The underlying business is struggling; A.I. presents itself as a compelling narrative reset, and off we go." Founded in 2015 by a New Zealand soccer star and a clean-technology entrepreneur, Allbirds used wool and castor bean oil to produce shoes, marketing them as sustainable and minimalist attire. They soon become a staple of tech office wear, filling the wardrobes of Bay Area executives and programmers. In an attempt to globalize its product, Allbirds opened dozens of stores in the United States and around the world, including in Britain, China and New Zealand. Executives spent millions to try to lure consumers with splashy television ads, pushing new versions of the wool shoes. Yet the sneaker brand struggled to attract shoppers outside its tech bubble, with all of the Allbirds stores in the United States closing, except for two outlet stores. Sales fell nearly 20 percent last year, and the company reported $77 million in net losses. Since going public, the business has never turned a profit. Allbirds, which advertises "sustainability in every step," said in a regulatory filing that the company would ask stockholders, who must approve the asset sale, to also approve the removal of "references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit." The soaring electricity demands of data centers and A.I. infrastructure are straining the grid in some areas, pushing up emissions and slowing the energy transition.

'You Can't Miss What Our Values Are': Before Its Pivot to AI, Allbirds Sounded Very Different

When Allbirds, which was once an environmentalist shoe company, announced its pivot to AI on Wednesday via a “$50M convertible financing facility agreement,†it didn’t cushion the blow with niceties. The move came across as ice cold, paying zero lip service to any “mission†or “valuesâ€â€"other than the value of monetary returns for shareholders, of course. So it’s all the more fascinating to rewind the clock to 2019 and listen to just how idealistic Allbirds, which will now be called NewBird AI, used to sound back when its reputation was all about sustainability: Joey Zwillinger, who has a background in industrial engineering, was one of the co-founders of Allbirds in 2015, and was its CEO during its 2021 IPO. Zwillinger spoke at a German tech conference called Bits & Pretzels in 2019 and his company pitch naturally relied on environmentalist values. Allbirds, in Zwillinger’s telling, was a shoe company that used sustainable materials without any compromise in terms of quality or style. And that, he explained, was the core of its success. There’s a perceived tension between what’s sustainable and what’s a good product, Zwillinger acknowledges, “and we fundamentally believe that that is a tension that shouldn't exist.†2019 was a strange timeâ€"near the end of an era in which Big Tech CEOs were still superficially coded as the idealists and liberals of the corporate world, and more to the point, as opponents of Donald Trump. With that in mind, it makes all the more sense that the co-founder of a shoe company was at a tech conference talking about sustainability and values. “I think the thing that made us successful early, I'm quite convinced, is the clarity of message, and the singularity that we offer to consumers,†Zwillinger says. At the company’s launch, he explains, “We realized that there was a giant opportunity to take what the footwear industry doesâ€"which is make 20 billion pairs of shoes every yearâ€"without really much thought towards the environment, and use that as a platform to release something special.†“You can't miss what our values are,†he adds later. He says customers intuit this, but only when they buy Allbirds products as repeat customers: “At the point of sale, when they're giving us money they're doing it because the product is fantastic. They then stay loyal to the brand I think afterwards because they align with the values of the company, and they understand that we can make a positive impact in the world and also make money, and people would like to reward us for that.†What’s more, Zwillinger claims that this kind of values-oriented corporate style is the wave of the future, and that those who don't ride the wave are missing out. “We're at the front end of a multi decade trend where brands do have to stand for something more than just making money, and if they don't there's no real way they're gonna actually thrive and survive on the global stage.†Consumers, Zwillinger says, “are asking companies to do more than just make money for their shareholders and we provide a really clear path to doing that even in the way we've structured our organization.†Allbirds was, at the time, structured as a public benefit corporation. Public benefit corporations aren’t just money-generating entities, and actually do have missions built into their corporate governance schemes. “Our charter says environmental conservation is our stakeholder as well as our fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and that is what I believe consumers are asking for,†Zwillinger explains. Setting aside the motives of those who bought Allbirds products for environmental reasons, this public benefit factor would, in theory, have been an important calculation for anyone who bought a stake in Allbirdsâ€"including retail investors after its IPO. Allbirds' poor stock performance became a sort of object lesson in values-based investing, and, perhaps, avoiding it altogether. Zwillinger stepped down as CEO in 2024. But late last month, when Allbirds, the publicly-traded corporation sold its shoe business to American Exchange Group, it basically became an empty shell. If you owned stock in it, what you owned was sort of a mystery for a couple weeks. As of Wednesday, when the company now called NewBird AI announced its $50 million loan to buy GPUs, it also announced in an SEC filing that it recommends doing away with its environmental mission: "Because the anticipated Electronics Infrastructure Business would be less focused on the public benefit of environmental conservation, which is stated in the Company’s Certificate of Incorporation, stockholders are being asked to approve the Charter Amendment Proposal (as defined herein) to remove references to the Company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit. Such amendment will also reflect our new corporate name, because as described herein, the Buyer in the Asset Sale will own the 'Allbirds' tradename and all related intellectual property following the closing of the Asset Sale." For whatever reason, shares in the company formerly known as Allbirds skyrocketed 582% on this announcement. If you were a confused Allbirds investor on Tuesday, holding shares in a mystery company, on Wednesday your mood must have improved. If you invested in a company with environmentalist values back in 2021, and then watched your investment turn to dust when the stock got wiped out back in 2021, Wednesday's performance was nowhere near enough to make up for the value that disappeared. But if you bought the dip, your portfolio just got a big AI boost. You'd better hope AI, not values-oriented investing, is the real wave of the future, and that this time the wave will never crash. Gizmodo reached out to Allbirds for comment. We will update this article if we hear back.

Allbirds shares jump over 400% on plans to pivot to AI from sneakers

April 15 (Reuters) - Shares of Allbirds (BIRD.O), opens new tab surged more than five-fold on Wednesday after the footwear maker said it was raising capital and pivoting towards AI computing infrastructure. The San Francisco, California-based company said that it would execute a $50 million convertible financing agreement with an institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to acquire graphics processing units (GPUs). Allbirds also plans to rebrand itself as "NewBird AI" and, over time, shift focus to offering cloud computing capacity and AI services, though it did not provide additional details on its new strategy. The overhaul comes amid robust investor enthusiasm ⁠for AI-related stocks and the data-centre infrastructure that supports it, hoping to benefit from the hundreds of billions of corporate investment pouring into the technology. "It looks like an attempt to capitalize on the AI movement. I don't see how Allbirds brings anything to the table beyond name recognition," said Bruce Winder, an independent retail consultant. Allbirds has been shutting most of its brick-and-mortar stores over the last few months owing to muted demand and switch to online partnerships. ⁠Last month, Allbirds said it had sold its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. The stock was last up 435% at $13.33, valuing the company at $116 million, according to LSEG data. Allbirds was also among the most active orders on Fidelity's ⁠trading platform on Wednesday, signalling interest from retail traders. The move echoes past efforts by small U.S. firms that reshaped their business models to tap investor enthusiasm. In 2017, ⁠beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea Corp pivoted to blockchain technology under the name Long Blockchain Allbirds made its Nasdaq debut in 2021 at a valuation of $3 ⁠billion, but shed about 99% of its market value as of its last closing price. Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Savyata Mishra; Editing by Diti Pujara Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Allbirds Is Getting Out of the Shoe Business and Pivoting to AI Infrastructure

Allbirds rose to prominence selling sustainable Merino wool sneakers that became the signature uniform of the Silicon Valley tech crowd in the late 2010s before rapidly losing popularity on the heels of its 2021 IPO. Faced with possible extinction, the company is now jumping on the AI hype train. Sales have been declining for a couple of years now, and Allbirds announced earlier this year that it would close all of its brick-and-mortar stores. Then, last month, it announced a $39 million sale of the company to American Exchange Group, which operates brands like Ed Hardy. Most thought that would be the end of it. But they were wrong. On Wednesday, Allbirds announced that it was reinventing the company as an AI infrastructure company. American Exchange Group will keep Allbirds, the shoe brand, going. But Allbirds, the company, will now go by Newbird AI, that is, if it secures stockholder approval at an upcoming meeting in mid-May. To do so, the company agreed with an institutional investor on a $50 million convertible financing facility, i.e., debt that the investor can convert into equity later. With that money, "Newbird" aims to buy GPUs. The long-term plan is to "become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider," according to the press release. GPUaaS is a burgeoning type of AI enterprise that aims to address the demand driven by a global GPU crunch by giving AI startups the chance to outsource the processing power behind their models. "The Company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service," the press release said. New technology is exciting, and the corporate world has shown time and again that there is nothing businessmen love more than a hype train. In the late 1990s, the hype train was the internet, with every company vying to add a ".com" to the end of their name, creating a bubble that some experts believe is dwarfed by today's rumored AI bubble. In the 2010s, it was the rush to get on the blockchain, a craze perfectly exemplified by Long Island Iced Tea's rebranding as Long Blockchain. That company was delisted by the SEC in 2021. In the mid-2020s, the buzziest word you can put in a company name to get investors rushing to buy your stock is AI. To say that Allbirds' stock price soared with the news would be an understatement. As of 11 AM, the stock was up more than 420%. Elon Musk is weeping in appreciation right now.

Allbirds goes soleless and pivots to AI

Remember when companies existed to manufacture physical products? Credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images In this modern era where seemingly every tech company is defined by its relationship with AI (or lack thereof), Allbirds has made perhaps the most 180-degree corporate pivot we've ever seen. In case you're unfamiliar, Allbirds was a direct-to-consumer company that made wool sneakers popular among Silicon Valley types in the 2010s. Take note of the past tense, because the company announced in a statement this week that it is completely abandoning the shoe business to instead become an AI firm. An unspecified investor has agreed to pony up $50 million to fund the brand's pivot to AI compute infrastructure; the money will go towards data center tech instead of shoe production. Don't miss out on our latest stories: Add Mashable as a trusted news source in Google. Allbirds has also changed its name to NewBird AI. In a company statement, it proclaimed that it would help facilitate access to AI hardware for clients. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet...The result is a market where enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations are unable to secure the compute resources they need to build, train and run AI at scale. NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap. The Company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service." It wasn't that long ago that Allbirds was riding high, and after a 2021 IPO, the company reached a peak valuation of over $4 billion. Amid the tech startup boom of the last 15-ish years, Allbirds Merino wool sneakers were commonplace in Bay Area tech offices. However, it's been a rough five years for the brand, and after failing to find a wider market, it was sold for pennies on the dollar to a brand management firm in March, according to the New York Times. For what it's worth, NewBird AI stock rose 600 percent after the announcement, per the Times. Still, it's highly unusual to see a clothing company completely drop the clothing part of its business in favor of buying up GPUs to lease to clients. Many companies, big and small, have pivoted towards AI in one way or another in recent years, with varying degrees of success.

I have an Allbirds collection that I love, and its AI pivot feels worse than poorly-fitting shoes

* Allbirds is pivoting to AI * The new company is called NewBird AI * It'll sell AI GPU space, but why did Allbirds choose this path, and what does it really mean? I discovered Allbirds on TikTok. The social media platform might be a source of entertainment and information for some, but it's increasingly where I find tantalizing brands for products I end up loving. Shoe and apparel maker Allbirds was one of them. Now it's NewBird AI, an AI infrastructure company, in a pivot that makes about as much sense as wrapping slices of bologna around your feet and calling them sandals. As a loyal customer who once took his wife to the sole New York City Allbirds store and convinced her to buy a pair of $100 slip-ons, I watched with dismay as the once high-flying viral shoe company narrowly avoided bankruptcy. Up until a week ago, I was still receiving two or three promotional Allbirds texts per month, and I would've happily bought another one of their lightweight, extremely comfortable, and, yes, washable shoes. I don't know exactly where things went wrong with Allbirds, but now I, and most of the rest of the world, know where it's going. Early on Wednesday, the company put out a press release which reiterated that the Allbirds assets had been sold to American Exchange Group, which, according to the release, "intends to continue to build on Allbirds' legacy and deliver compelling products to Allbirds' customers." That sounds like it means the AllBirds brand of shoes will continue. But the rest of the release is a business jargon-filled word salad. Even though they sold the assets, vestiges of the Allbirds company remain, which trades publicly on the NASDAQ. That company apparently secured $50m in financing "to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure." And the long-term vision is selling AI GPU space or cycles as a service, which it calls "GPU aaS". Oh, and the new name is NewBird AI. Look, I have no problem with this business concept. GPU access demand for AI model building and prompt processing is at an all-time high. Smaller companies may want something like an AWS for AI to rent out cycles for their small-to-medium-sized businesses. Such a service lets the smaller players appear to be the bigger ones to their customers. If they want an AI chatbot on their site, perhaps they rent out cycles from NewBird AI. What I don't get is what this has to do with shoes. AllBirds sells stylish, well-made shoes and sneakers. It was an excellent online retailer, at least from this customer's point of view. Look, I was so excited when I got my first pair, I did a TikTok unboxing. You might argue that everything in life is now connected to AI. There's no reason Allbirds...I mean, NewBird AI... can't be connected, too. I guess. What I really think, though, is that this is a craven attention play. AllBirds business is pretty much dead (maybe), but the brand has a profile. NewBird AI's financers clearly think there's huge, if temporary value in the name. I found an expert source Weirdly, so do investors. News of the pivot sent AllBirds stock skyrocketing. In the morning, it was under two dollars. By the afternoon, it was trading at over $20 a share. I don't know what that says about the average investor's overall intelligence. Do they think the bizarre intersection of a former shoe brand and AI is a winning combination? As I said, there's some value in the idea, but no reason to associate it with the brand in any way. And what of Allbirds? I visited the site and launched the live chat, where I found a sales assistant named Sophie (who may have been AI). I wrote, "What's this I hear about you pivoting to AI?" Sophie: "Hi there! This is Sophie from Allbirds here, thanks for reaching out! 😊 Could you share a bit more about what you've heard regarding us 'pivoting to AI'? I'm here to help with any Allbirds-related questions you have." Me: "I'm told you are being renamed to NewBird AI and will be selling AI services. Will you also still sell shoes?" Sophie: "I'm here to help with Allbirds shoes, orders, or services. Is there something specific I can assist you with today?" Since I knew Sophie wouldn't answer me about New Bird AI, I pivoted to finding out if they still planned on shipping shoes next week. Sophie: "Yes -- Allbirds is still selling and shipping shoes, so you should be able to place an order next week." In fact, Sophie was cool with me waiting even longer, like a month. Sophie: "Yes -- that should be fine. Allbirds is still selling and shipping shoes, so you can wait until next month if you'd like." This makes some sense, because the former Allbirds did sell its assets to American Exchange Group, which owns fashion brands like Aerosoles, Alexis Bendel, and Ed Hardy. So perhaps my once-favorite shoe brand (kind of into Hey Dude now) may live on under its ample umbrella of fashion and products. As for NewBird AI, it seems like the new company leveraged the old AllBirds brand name for just long enough to make a boatload of seed capital from the stock exchange. NewBird AI is, in the end, a sole-less enterprise that ultimately bears no relationship to the Allbirds legacy. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Shares in Allbirds surge after maker of wool sneakers announces pivot to AI

Rebrand as NewBird AI sent shares up 582% in bizarre and rapid turnaround for firm that had fallen on hard times Allbirds, the maker of minimalist wool sneakers beloved by Silicon Valley, announced on Wednesday that it is leaving shoes behind and pivoting to artificial intelligence. The new focus and rebrand as "NewBird AI" sent the company's stock up 582% as of mid-day during a flurry of trading. The surging stock price and new direction is a bizarre, rapid turnaround for a company that had fallen into disrepair in recent years. Once valued at $4bn, Allbirds' shares had lost 99% of their worth since 2021 and earlier this month the company announced plans for a $39m sale to brand management firm American Exchange Company. Allbirds' declaration that it will concentrate on acquiring graphics processing units to help support AI compute stands out as one of the most baffling pivots of the AI boom, a period in which many companies have tried to shoehorn-in AI to appeal to investors and the market. The long-term viability of its plan is less clear than the immediate effect of turning Allbirds into something of a meme stock, with its value wildly fluctuating throughout the day. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said in a statement. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap." The company has secured $50m in funding from an unnamed investor for its new AI operation, according to a filing with the Security and Exchange Commission. The filing also said that the Allbirds would shift from its status as an eco-conscious public benefit corporation into a conventional corporation, stating that the new company "would be less focused on the public benefit of environmental conservation". Allbirds, soon to be NewBird AI, did not respond to a request for comment on its planned rebrand and pivot to AI. The company for years made sustainability central to its marketing, helping it court politicians and celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, who invested in the company in 2018 and touted it as a "model for the footwear industry". Gwyneth Paltrow, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama were among the influential figures seen wearing, or advocating for, the brand. Despite its initial success, the brand struggled to sustain its momentum and largely fell out of fashion. At the peak of Allbirds' popularity it had dozens of brick-and-mortar stores around the world, but in recent years faced a drastic decline in sales and in the third quarter of last year declared a $20.3m loss. Allbirds closed the last of its physical stores in the US in January. Allbirds is now waiting on shareholders to approve American Exchange Company's purchase of the company in a vote next month. The company said in its statement that the sale will allow Allbirds "to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider".

What It Really Means That a Failing Shoe Brand "Pivoted to AI" and Its Stock Soared 700 Percent

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech As it turns out, all it takes to turn a cash-bleeding company into the New York Stock Exchange's latest obsession are three magic words: "pivot to AI." In a baffling announcement today, struggling tech bro shoe company Allbirds said that it was closing a $50 million deal that "will enable the Company to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure" -- under the new name, "NewBird AI," of course. Put simply, the company is planning to buy extremely-hard-to-obtain AI chips and rent computing power to tech startups as a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service." To call it a reinvention would be an understatement. A mere two weeks ago, the company held a fire sale for all of its intellectual property and other assets, shutting down its footwear business for just $39 million. That's a long cry from its once lofty $4 billion market cap only five years ago. Its promise to jump on the AI gravy train, however, has seemingly left its ruinous financials in the rearview mirror. Allbird's shares skyrocketed by more than 700 percent following its announcement today before stabilizing at around $17, up from less than $7 when trading began this morning. The head-spinning turnaround illustrates an already-familiar story. The AI industry continues to pour tens of billions of dollars into AI infrastructure, despite having little evidence of being on a road to profitability, further stoking persistent fears over an AI bubble. "If you don't believe we are in a bubble you are in denial," AI skeptic Ed Zitron wrote in a post in response to Allbirds' stock market boost. Business fundamentals have taken a backseat as investors restlessly chase the next big opportunity. As Allbirds' meteoric rise from the ashes illustrates, the stock market has little interest in reality, choosing to believe that a failing shoe company will be able to "acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware" to fill a market gap for desperate AI companies. Access to compute has turned into a bragging right among industry leaders, with OpenAI recently claiming it had far more ambitious plans to bring tens of gigawatts worth of compute -- enough to power millions of US households -- online by the end of the decade, compared to its rival, Anthropic. Netizens were bewildered by the latest pivot, resulting in plenty of mockery on social media. "I like my Allbirds," Mother Jones journalist and MSNBC correspondent David Corn joked in a post on Bluesky. "I just don't need for them to predict stock market trends for me." "Nothing says 'America is Back Baby!' like 'Allbirds became an AI hardware middleman because they wanted to pump their stock instead of going into bankruptcy, so they said they will find some computer chips somewhere, but can no longer sell shoes,'" The Onion CEO Ben Collins wrote.

From wool sneakers to GPUs: Allbirds' desperate AI pivot and 600% stock surge, explained | Fortune

Many companies, from Walmart to United Airlines, have been heavily touting their use of artificial intelligence to get some more love from Wall Street during this AI boom -- and some have successfully boosted their stock's value. Now Allbirds has joined the fray: The shoe company announced on Wednesday it would reinvent itself as an AI computing infrastructure company, despite having no history whatsoever there. Investors bit, driving shares up 600% in afternoon trading. Allbirds, the maker of the once wildly popular wool sneakers favored by the Silicon Valley cognoscenti, announced recently that it was selling itself to a brand management company, American Exchange Group, for $39 million, about 1% of its 2021 peak market capitalization. It gave no indication at the time, however, that such a dramatic pivot was in the works. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had secured $50 million in financing to turn itself into a tech company with a "long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider" and that it would change its name to NewBirdAI. The company also appeared to back away from its once-touted environmental advocacy, asking shareholders to allow it to remove "references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit." It was, to put it mildly, a surprising move: Allbirds has never offered AI products or services, has zero expertise or history in the field, and has no GPU procurement teams or data center experience. So why do it? We are in an era of intense speculative fervor around AI that has led to big run ups in stock values at the mere mention of the term. Many commentators have compared this moment with 2017 and 2018, when a number of companies with absolutely nothing to do cryptocurrency changed their names and saw shares jumps. Remember when Long Island Iced Tea Corp., a small beverage maker, changed its name to Long Blockchain and declared that it would "leverage the benefits of blockchain technology"? Its stock surged 500% but within months, the shares were delisted from the Nasdaq. Allbirds last week announced its new "canvas cruiser" collection, along with a partnership with Pantone, the color company. The company did not respond to a request for comment on whether it still planned to pursue the shoe line. Canvas is relatively new territory for a brand famous for its wool shoes -- but Allbirds probably has better odds of pulling off a stylistic reinvention within its market category than it will by trying to be something it clearly isn't: an AI player.

Allbirds rebrands as NewBird AI to enter AI chip market

Allbirds announced plans to pivot from footwear to AI compute infrastructure and rename itself NewBird AI, sending BIRD stock up more than 600% from under $3 a share. The company said it has signed a definitive agreement with an institutional investor for a $50 million convertible financing facility, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. The funds are contingent on stockholder approval at a special meeting anticipated for May 18, 2026. According to the company, NewBird AI intends to purchase specialized AI compute hardware and make it available through extended lease contracts, serving customers -- including enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations -- who have been unable to meet their needs through short-term spot markets or large cloud providers. The company's long-term vision is to become a GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider, according to the company. This strategic change follows a $39 million deal in late March, when Allbirds sold its footwear brand and related intellectual property to American Exchange Group. The buyer, which owns brands like Aerosoles and Ed Hardy, plans to keep using the Allbirds name on its products. Stockholders of record as of May 20, 2026, are expected to receive a special dividend after the asset sale, pending stockholder approval. When it debuted on public markets in 2021, Allbirds commanded a valuation exceeding $4 billion, having been established six years earlier in 2015. The company built its identity around sustainability and natural materials, most notably its merino wool Wool Runner shoe. By 2025, annual sales had dropped to $152 million -- roughly half the $298 million the company recorded in 2022 -- and in February 2026, Allbirds shuttered every full-priced store it operated in the United States. Before Wednesday's announcement, the company was valued at about $21 million at the previous session's close. The stock price hit an intraday high of $23, then settled in the $17 to $18 range by publication time. The announcement draws comparisons to a pattern seen during prior market booms. One frequently cited example is Long Island Iced Tea, a beverage company that renamed itself Long Blockchain Corp. during the 2017 crypto frenzy and was subsequently removed from the Nasdaq $NDAQ exchange the following year, as Yahoo Finance noted.

Allbirds Stock Spikes 400% on Pivot From Shoe Brand to AI Compute -- Yes, Really - Decrypt

The firm will sell the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group and rebrand. Sustainable footwear company Allbirds announced Wednesday that it will pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, securing $50 million in convertible financing to fund the dramatic transformation. The company executed a definitive agreement with an institutional investor for the financing facility as it abandons its shoe business for GPU-as-a-Service operations. Allbirds said it entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group, a brand management company focused on the accessory space, for $39 million. The company anticipates changing its name to NewBird AI, with a vision to become a GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. Investors love the pivot for the distressed brand, with shares of BIRD spiking more than 400% after Wednesday's open to a daily peak of $12.72. As of this writing, BIRD is changing hands for $10.97 per share, up about 340% after touching its highest price since last July. According to company statements, NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the financing facility to acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity. "The Company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service," it said in a statement. The convertible financing facility is expected to close during the second quarter of 2026, according to the company's filing. Allbirds has scheduled a special meeting of stockholders for May 18, for stockholders of record as of April 13. The company also anticipates issuing a special dividend during the third quarter of 2026 to stockholders of record as of May 20. The pivot comes as Allbirds faces significant financial challenges, with the company's market cap recently sitting around $21 million despite its previous unicorn status. The stock had tumbled to a Tuesday close of $2.49 per share, down more than 60% over the past six months. The company has burned through cash, posting negative free cash flow of $58.23 million over the last 12 months. Chardan, the investment bank serving as placement agent on the convertible financing facility, structured the deal to provide immediate liquidity while giving investors potential upside through conversion features. Demand for AI computing power has prompted a number of Bitcoin mining firms to pivot their immense infrastructure to high-performing computing needs, though Allbirds had no such computing foundation to start from.

Allbirds says it's ditching footwear and pivoting to become an AI company

Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. Allbirds is trading in sneakers for servers, selling its footwear brand as it races to reinvent itself as an AI company in a move that sent its stock soaring 600%. The eco-friendly shoe company announced Wednesday that it is transitioning into an AI business, which it plans to name "NewBird AI." Allbirds said it will focus on "AI compute infrastructure," with a long-term goal of offering a fully integrated cloud computing model. The company said it has reached a $50 million agreement with an institutional investor to make the change. Allbirds, known for its minimalist wool sneakers, will sell its footwear assets to American Exchange Group, which owns more than 30 brands across fashion, jewelry, footwear and personal care. Investors cheered the move, with its outsized gains reminiscent of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, when companies' stocks soared after they announced they were switching to an online model. GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders said Allbirds is using the shell of the former business to generate capital and transform itself into a new AI-focused venture. "That is not a bad thing as it could provide a new lease of life for investors and some employees," he told CBS News in an email. "There is demand for AI compute capacity, but quite what expertise the so-called NewBird AI has in the space and how it intends to capture market share remain unclear." The company's stock, which after its market debut in 2021 traded for more than $600, added $14.50, or 582%, on the day to close at $16.99. The San Francisco-based company is entering the AI race at a time when the technology is delivering huge financial returns for investors. Many think the optimism is overstated, citing concerns that the market could be in an AI bubble. Allbirds framed its pivot as a way to help fill a gap in the AI market. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said in its statement.

Footwear firm Allbirds trades shoes for AI and shares rise over 430%

In a radical strategic overhaul, Allbirds is divesting its footwear business while securing $50 million (€42.4 million) in new financing to acquire GPUs and rebrand as NewBird AI. In a decisive break from its origins as a sustainable footwear maker, Allbirds is exiting consumer products entirely to reposition itself as a provider of AI compute infrastructure, according to a company announcement. Shares of the firm traded over 430% higher at the New York open on Wednesday. The move comes as the business seeks to capitalise on strong demand for specialised computing resources, redirecting capital away from its legacy operations towards high-growth opportunities in AI. Allbirds has already entered into a definitive agreement to sell its brand and all footwear assets to American Exchange Group. The purchaser plans to maintain the Allbirds legacy business and continue supplying products to customers. Subject to shareholder approval, the transaction is expected to conclude in the second quarter of 2026. Upon completion, and subject to approval, the company intends to issue a special dividend to eligible shareholders in the third quarter of 2026, on 20 May. This step effectively separates the footwear operations from the listed entity, allowing the latter to pursue a new direction without the drag of its former activities. To finance the transition, Allbirds has executed a definitive agreement for a $50 million (€42.4m) convertible financing facility with an institutional investor. The investment bank Chardan is acting as a placement agent on the deal, which is scheduled to close in the second quarter of 2026 and remains subject to shareholder approval at a special meeting anticipated for 18 May. Proceeds from the facility will initially be deployed to purchase high-performance GPU assets. These will underpin the provision of dedicated AI compute capacity, offered to customers under long-term lease arrangements, according to the announcement. In tandem with the pivot, the company anticipates changing its corporate name to NewBird AI. The rebranded business aims to evolve into a fully integrated provider of GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions. Plans include growing its neocloud platform through expanded compute offerings, strengthened partnerships with customers and organisations and the evaluation of strategic merger and acquisition opportunities. The announcement highlights unprecedented structural demand for AI compute, driven by rising global enterprise spending on AI services and data centre investments. At the same time, procurement lead times for advanced hardware are lengthening, North American data centre vacancy rates have hit historic lows and available compute capacity through the middle of 2026 is already fully committed. Such conditions, the company notes, are leaving enterprises, developers and research organisations struggling to secure the resources needed to train and run AI models at scale. However, moves of this nature also raise questions about the risks of excessive speculation and the potential formation of an AI investment bubble in certain market segments.

Allbirds, once a buzzy shoe startup, pivots to AI

A shopper carries an Allbirds bag in New York in 2019. Gabby Jones / Bloomberg via Getty Images file The shoe brand that was once a favorite of the Silicon Valley tech scene is moving away from footwear and onto what its wearers have been obsessing over the most: AI. Allbirds announced on Wednesday that it would be pivoting to focus on AI compute infrastructure, changing its name to "NewBird AI." The company said it struck a $50 million agreement to fund the new venture. Shares in the company, which have struggled over the past year, shot up by more than 300%. Allbirds said in its release that it will use its initial capital to buy high-performance, low-latency graphics processing units -- the hardware that powers AI's capabilities known as GPUs -- to try to expand long term as a GPU-as-a-service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said in the release. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap." Once the trendy shoe among the tech elite, Allbirds failed to capitalize on its hot start to become a major player in the shoe market, and the company's share price declined steadily starting in July 2025. Earlier this year, Allbirds closed all of its full-price retail stores in the U.S., shifting completely to online sales. Late last month, Allbirds sold its brand and footwear assets to the management and licensing firm American Exchange Group for $39 million. American Exchange Group is known for brands like Ed Hardy and Mudd, as well as tech wearables. The shift to AI infrastructure comes at a time when demand for AI compute is at an all-time high, with AI companies racing to put out more and more models. But abrupt moves like this haven't gone down well in the past. In 2017, during a Bitcoin boom, Long Island Iced Tea shifted to cryptocurrency, changing its name to Long Blockchain. Later, the Securities and Exchange Commission delisted the company's shares due to its failure to file financial documents. It also charged three people with insider trading before the announcement of the Long Blockchain shift that had sent its shares jumping nearly 400%.

An American shoe company has taken a $50 million investment to pivot to, of all things, AI infrastructure

Allbirds, an [ex] shoe company with an environmental focus that has been around for over a decade now, has announced the sale of the brand and a pivot to AI. This includes a $50 million investment from "an institutional investor" into a facility, which is expected to serve the company's goals. As detailed in its latest press release (via Wall Street Rollup), it plans on becoming a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." In connection with this pivot, the Company anticipates changing its name to "NewBird AI." This means that NewBird AI, if successful, would be renting out access to high-performance GPUs via the cloud. Traditionally, services like this are used for AI training, rendering, and simulation. If a company cannot afford/doesn't have the space for cutting-edge GPU technology, a company like NewBird AI might step in. AI is famously a very expensive venture right now, and also a very profitable one. Nvidia, one of the biggest proponents of the AI wave, is the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of just under $5 trillion at the time of writing. However, it's not clear whether $50 million will be sufficient to give NewBird AI enough AI compute to be profitable. It's not just about whether or not it can buy space, or afford GPUs / servers on paper, but if its funds and market connections will beat out all the other companies clamouring for the same resources. The memory crisis is currently being caused by a surge of companies looking to get access to all the tech necessary to run AI, and more contenders weighing in means less memory for the rest of us. NewBird AI's current plan is subject to a stockholder meeting on May 18. If all goes to plan, NewBird AI will use its capital to loan, under long-term lease arrangements, "high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity." Think of it like renting out your house from a landlord, to then rent out individual rooms to other tenants. This can lead to stock insecurity at the end of those lease agreements, but it also means NewBird AI can rent out more GPUs than it could buy, and it will be left holding less of the bag, should the tech's price drop. AI is a big buzzword for stock value right now. The company went public in 2021, but its share value has been on a steady decline, going from a peak of over $1,000 per share in 2021 to around $2 per share just this week. However, the announcement of this AI pivot has caused the stock price to increase by almost 10 times its value, sitting at just under $20 per share right now. Whether or not pivoting to AI is the right call for NewBird AI is anyone's guess, but shareholders certainly do seem to love the technology right now, and the now former shoe company is likely basking in the glow of that stock injection. Unfortunately, though, even more companies tying up their value in AI does suggest the bubble will be even larger before/if it eventually pops, and they will eat up more and more of our oh-so-delicious memory until it does.

Allbirds stock is already falling after the AI pivot. History suggests investors should proceed with caution

After rising by more than 580% in a single trading session yesterday, shares of Allbirds Inc. (Nasdaq: BIRD) fell this morning in premarket trading, at one point more than 30%. The steep rise and now potential fall in the stock price followed the company's unexpected announcement that it intends to transition from a sustainable shoemaker to an AI compute infrastructure provider. But while AI-obsessed investors initially cheered the odd move, history suggests the pivot may be a challenging one to pull off in the long run. Here's what you need to know. What's happened? Yesterday, San Francisco-based Allbirds, whose wool footwear had been popular with Silicon Valley locals, announced something completely unexpected: it would stop making shoes and instead become yet another AI company.

Fancy footwear brand Allbirds has just transformed into an AI business - SiliconANGLE

Fancy footwear brand Allbirds has just transformed into an AI business In a surprising turn of events, the struggling sneaker company that once tried to make shoes eco-sustainable announced today that it has metamorphosed into artificial intelligence firm. The San Francisco-based company, once valued at $4 billion, said it would "pivot its business" to "AI compute infrastructure," completely abandoning footwear and now with a "long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider." The company will from here on in be known as NewBird AI. The move will still need to be approved by the board, with a vote scheduled for May 18. If it receives approval, the company has said it will raise $50 million although didn't specify who would be making the investment. That money will go to the "acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads and other related assets." It seems that how easy it is to become an AI firm, although the move has left observers in the industry somewhat bewildered. "The rise ofand adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company explained in a press release. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap." Shifting consumer patterns have not been kind to the company formerly known as Allbirds. A few weeks ago, it sold its footwear assets to the fashion firm, American Exchange Group, for just $39 million. This was quite the phoenix-esque fall for a company once the talk of town in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and global politics. The high-flying bird took a nosedive from there and from a valuation of billions, became what some commentators were calling a "dead parrot." The recent transformation has pushed the stock price up considerably, but with a current market value close to $150 million, the company is still very much walking in the shadows of past glory. Whether attaching the words "artificial intelligence" to your company name means anyone can make it these days remains to be seen. "Some of those shifts are real and strategic," AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman told the Associated Press. "Others feel more reactive. In this case, I think it's fair to say it can come across as a bit desperate. The underlying business struggled, and AI presents a compelling narrative reset."

Allbirds ditches sneaker business to pivot to AI compute, stock surges over 700% | Fortune

Two weeks ago, Allbirds was a cautionary tale. The maker of the wool sneakers seemingly glued to the feet of every Patagonia-vested VC in 2019, once worth $4 billion, had a humiliating fire sale on April Fools' Day and sold itself to a brand management company for $39 million -- roughly 1% of its peak valuation. It had already closed every full-price store in the U.S. The obituaries abounded as analysts pitied yet another darling that mistook a Silicon Valley fad for a real brand. Today, the same ticker is up more than 700% as Allbirds pivots to AI. That's not a joke. That's because Allbirds, the shoe company, is no longer a shoe company. Taking the Silicon Valley label on the nose, on Wednesday, it announced it is pivoting entirely to artificial intelligence compute infrastructure and renaming itself NewBird AI. The new entity has lined up $50 million in funding, expected to close in the second quarter, which it plans to spend on "high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware" leased out to customers that "spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service." Basically: it's buying GPUs and renting them out, and would like to be maybe named in the same sentence as Nvidia, please. The whiplash is something to behold. Just eight months ago, cofounder Tim Brown sat down with Fortune for the brand's 10-year anniversary and laid out a comeback plan rooted in the basics. "This moment is about going back to the beginning and back to those core principles that had been lost as we had so much growth and expansion," he said, quoting a Maori proverb about walking backwards into the future. "This is a brand worth fighting for, with principles that have never felt more full of potential and important in this moment." The principles, it turns out, were negotiable. CEO Joe Vernachio, brought in to save the company, was at the time pitching smaller, cozier stores with books and plants and couches and candles, and reframing the brand's eco-pitch around the word "nature" instead of "sustainability," which he joked "sounds like a chore, like sorting your garbage." By April, Vernachio was the one announcing the $39 million fire sale, telling shareholders the deal "sets up the brand to thrive in the years ahead." The brand will indeed continue, under new ownership at American Exchange Group. The amazing surge has drawn comparisons to a time of the late 2010s, when any company could slip in the word "blockchain" into a new strategy and the stock would surge. Particularly, it looks a lot like Long Island Iced Tea's bizarre 2017 shift from iced tea toward the "exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology." That move initially sent the stock surging, closing up more than 180%. The company was delisted only months later.

Allbirds stock soars 373% after pivot to AI computing

Allbirds stock rose 373% this week after the San Francisco footwear company announced plans to sell its shoe brand and assets and rebrand as an AI infrastructure company called NewBird AI. Under the NewBird AI name, the company has positioned itself as a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider." Funding for the transition comes from a $50 million convertible financing facility arranged with an institutional investor whose identity has not been disclosed; proceeds will go toward purchasing GPU assets to serve clients in need of AI compute capacity. A March agreement transferred the footwear brand and its associated assets to American Exchange Group -- the owner of Aerosoles, among other labels -- for $39 million. Once the transaction is finalized, that company will take over production for existing Allbirds customers. Both the asset sale and the new financing require shareholder sign-off before they can proceed; that vote is set for May 18. A dividend would be distributed to shareholders in the third quarter if the deal clears that hurdle. Rather than pursuing a fresh public listing, Allbirds is repurposing its existing Nasdaq $NDAQ-listed entity -- which trades under the ticker BIRD -- to enter the AI market directly. The company's market value closed at about $22 million on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, before the announcement. Looking ahead, the company intends to expand what it offers by pursuing partnerships and, where circumstances allow, strategic acquisitions. The move follows a pattern of struggling companies pivoting into high-growth sectors. Recent precedents cited by Bloomberg include Core Scientific, which shifted focus from Bitcoin mining to AI in 2024, and several biotech firms that repositioned themselves around digital assets the following year. TechCrunch points to an older warning sign: Long Island Iced Tea's 2017 blockchain rebrand sent its shares up roughly 275%, but the gains proved short-lived -- Nasdaq removed the stock from its exchange the next year once enthusiasm for Bitcoin cooled.

Allbirds says it's ditching footwear and pivoting to become an AI company. Its stock just jumped 600%.

Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. She previously worked at "60 Minutes," CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program. Allbirds is trading in sneakers for servers, selling its footwear brand as it races to reinvent itself as an AI company in a move that sent its stock soaring 600%. The eco-friendly shoe company announced Wednesday that it is transitioning into an AI business, which it plans to name "NewBird AI." Allbirds said it will focus on "AI compute infrastructure," with a long-term goal of offering a fully integrated cloud computing model. The company said it has reached a $50 million agreement with an institutional investor to make the change. Allbirds, known for its minimalist wool sneakers, will sell its footwear assets to American Exchange Group, which owns more than 30 brands across fashion, jewelry, footwear and personal care. Investors cheered the move, with its outsized gains reminiscent of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, when companies' stocks soared after they announced they were switching to an online model. GlobalData retail analyst Neil Saunders said Allbirds is using the shell of the former business to generate capital and transform itself into a new AI-focused venture. "That is not a bad thing as it could provide a new lease of life for investors and some employees," he told CBS News in an email. "There is demand for AI compute capacity, but quite what expertise the so-called NewBird AI has in the space and how it intends to capture market share remain unclear." The company's stock jumped $14.86, or 597%, to $17.35 in early afternoon trading. The San Francisco-based company is entering the AI race at a time when the technology is delivering huge financial returns for investors. Many think the optimism is overstated, citing concerns that the market could be in an AI bubble. Allbirds framed its pivot as a way to help fill a gap in the AI market. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet," the company said in its statement.

Allbirds' Reinvention Is Exciting the Market. Its $39 Million Sale and 17 Straight Losing Quarters Tell a Darker Story

Want more stock market and economic analysis from Phil Rosen directly in your inbox? Subscribe to Opening Bell Daily's newsletter. The shoe brand that once dominated the Silicon Valley startup scene just rebranded into an AI company. On Wednesday, Allbirds sold its brand for $39 million, crowned itself as "NewBird AI, and pivoted to a GPU-as-a-Service firm, sending its stock up more than 600 percent. Just as every executive in the late 1990s wanted to claim they ran "internet" companies, the same trend has followed with AI.

Failed Shoe Company Allbirds Pivoting To AI

What remains of Allbirds is pivoting away from shoes and plans to invest in AI compute and cloud services Allbirds, a failed shoe company that was once popular enough to be a favorite of President Barack Obama but is now a zombie corporation owned by a holding company, is getting out of the shoe business. It will now pivot and become an AI company because everything is stupid and broken these days. What started as a small shoe company in 2015 that got a big boost via Kickstarter, Allbirds eventually grew into a massive (and controversial) shoe manufacturer that opened stores across the United States, and by 2018, the company was valued at $1.8 billion. Fast forward to the 2020s and the company's tech bro aesthetics have fallen out of fashion, and Allbirds' attempts at expanding the brand to clothing failed. This led to declining sales, low profits, and a lot of angry stockholders. Last month, holding company American Exchange Group bought up Allbirds for $39 million. And now, the zombie remains of Allbirds are being mutilated and reshaped into an AI company. On April 15, Allbirds announced that it had received a $50 million injection of funds from an "institutional investor" and was now going to "pivot" from shoes to "AI compute infrastructure." In a press release announcing the odd news, the company added that the long-term plan is to "become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." As part of this pivot, Allbirds will change its name to NewBird AI. After this AI announcement, the stock for Allbirds (a failed shoe company, remember) jumped over 350 percent in hours. Reportedly, shares of the company leaped from $3 to $13. Watching a shoe company announce it is now an AI company feels like the biggest sign yet that the AI bubble is about to pop. It has similar vibes to when Kodak, a failing photography company, tried to jump into crypto right before it all collapsed, and the tech world moved on to AI. It's also not hard not to be reminded of GameStop's second meme stock situation in 2022, when the company announced crypto plans and hoped to recapture the initial meme stock frenzy that had happened the year before in 2021. That didn't work out as well as hoped, but it still helped the company's stock jump up quite a bit. Anyway, this is just how things work now, I guess. 2026 continues to be a very dumb year.

From wool sneakers to AI chips: Allbirds' next move is hard to explain

The fall of former direct-to-consumer darling Allbirds has taken a very weird turn. Allbirds, the sustainable shoemaker that caught fire with the Silicon Valley set about a decade ago, will start selling silicon itself. The company said in a press release that it will transform itself into a business focused on leasing GPUs - the powerful graphics chips underpinning the AI boom that are in short supply and high demand, much to the chagrin of gamers and tech CEOs. The husk of the shoe company that once was will "pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." The announcement does little to address the unprecedented weirdness of going from selling minimalist wool boots to hawking AI hardware-as-a-service. Allbirds says it will soon rebrand itself as "NewBird AI," a venture being funded by $50 million in convertible debt from an undisclosed investor. Allbirds plans to use the funds to buy a bunch of high-end hardware which it will then loan out to customers hurting for computing power in long-term leases. All of this is part of a grand vision for a "neocloud platform" which will somehow rise out of the ashes of a once-great retailer of, it must be emphasized, cute little shoes.

US Stocks | Unbelievable 600% rally in one day! Allbirds shares skyrocket as sneaker-maker plans AI pivot

Allbirds shares skyrocketed nearly 600% in a single session after the footwear brand unveiled a dramatic pivot to AI compute infrastructure, rebranding as NewBird AI and securing a $50 million financing facility to buy GPUs. The move marks a complete shift from its sustainable sneaker roots to the booming AI ecosystem. Shares of Allbirds surged a whopping 582% in just one session after the American wool sneaker-maker announced plans to completely pivot its business from a shoe-maker to an AI compute infrastructure company. After closing at $2.49 in the previous session, the Nasdaq-listed company's shares surged massively to close at $16.99 apiece on Wednesday. During the session, the stock exploded as much as 876% to hit an intraday high of $24.31 apiece. San Francisco-based Allbirds is known for its shoes made of natural materials like merino wool and eucalyptus. However, Allbirds on Wednesday announced a full pivot to AI compute infrastructure. It plans to rebrand as NewBird AI, announced a $50 million deal to start buying GPUs. "Allbirds Inc. today announced the execution of a definitive agreement with an institutional investor for a $50 million convertible financing facility. The facility, which is expected to close during the second quarter of 2026, will enable the company to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure," the company said in a press release. "The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialised, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet. Global enterprise spending on AI services and data center investment are on the rise. At the same time, GPU procurement lead times are increasing for high-end hardware, North American data center vacancy rates have reached historic lows, and market-wide compute capacity coming online through mid-2026 is already fully committed," it said, explaining the rationale behind the move. This comes after the company, on March 30, sold its brand and all footwear assets to American Exchange Group -- the firm behind Ed Hardy and Aerosoles -- for $39 million. This is nearly 1% of the $4 billion valuation it commanded during its 2021 Nasdaq debut. Under the new plan, which is subject to shareholders' approval, the company will use the $50 billion convertible financing facility to acquire high-performance GPU hardware. It will then lease access to that hardware under long-term arrangements, targeting enterprises and developers that it claims hyperscalers and spot markets are leaving behind. The pivot marks a sharp shift from the company's founding sustainability principles to an AI compute business. This reminds investors of Long Island Iced Tea's pivot to blockchain in 2017, rebranding itself as Long Blockchain Corp, following which the stock had surged 500%. The stock was eventually delisted in 2021, and the US SEC later charged three people with insider trading. "It looks like an attempt to capitalise on the AI movement. I don't see how Allbirds brings anything ⁠to the table beyond name recognition," Reuters quoted Bruce Winder, an independent retail consultant, as saying. Also read: Ola Electric vs Ather Energy: Which stock looks better after a stellar surge of up to 70% in April? The latest pivot comes as Allbirds has been reportedly shutting most of its offline stores over the last few months amid muted demand and a shift to online partnerships, before selling off its shoe business. The shift to artificial intelligence-linked business comes amid overall robust investor enthusiasm for AI-related stocks and the data-centre infrastructure that supports it, hoping to benefit from the hundreds of billions of corporate investment pouring ⁠into the technology. (With inputs from agencies) (Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Struggling Shoe Company Stock Rockets More Than 400% After Announcing Pivot To AI

Struggling Shoe Company Stock Rockets More Than 400% After Announcing Pivot To AI Allbirds, the hip shoe company of the 2010s centered around sustainable merino wool, sold its brand and footwear assets to a brand licensing firm last month for $39 million. It's next act: artificial intelligence, it announced Wednesday. Following the announcement, the former shoe company's shares rocketed more than 400% by mid-morning. The company, now calling itself NewBird AI, said it intends to raise up to $50 million in funding, which it will then spend on "high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware" that it plans to lease to customers. "NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the Facility to acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity," the company said. "NewBird AI's long-term vision is to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider."

Allbirds Is Selling Its Sneaker Business to Become an AI Company. The Stock Just Surged 650 Percent

Allbirds was once one of the defining direct-to-consumer success stories of the 2010s, known for its minimalist wool sneakers and sustainability pitch. Now, the company is abandoning that identity entirely. The struggling shoemaker has rebranded to NewBird AI, pivoting away from footwear and toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, with plans to become "a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider," according to its announcement. As part of the shift, Allbirds has reached a definitive agreement to sell its brand and footwear assets for $50 million, a move that will help fund its push into high-performance computing, Business Insider reported. The deal -- and the broader transformation -- still requires shareholder approval, which is expected on May 18, according to Barron's. The company says its new focus targets a growing bottleneck in the AI economy, access to computing power.

Jim Cramer Says He Wishes Allbirds People 'Luck' In Their AI Pivot But 'Things Have Gone Too Far' As Stoc

On Wednesday, shares of Allbirds Inc. (NASDAQ:BIRD) skyrocketed 582.33% during the regular trading session but slipped 24.66% in after-hours trading, according to Benzinga Pro. Allbirds Stock Surge Fueled By AI Pivot Announcement The company said it plans to exit its legacy footwear business entirely and pivot toward artificial intelligence and cloud computing capacity, with a rebrand to "NewBird" expected following the deal's anticipated close in the second quarter of 2026. After-Hours Drop Signals Investor Doubt Critics were quick to question the feasibility of the move, including Jim Cramer, who took to X and said, "I wish the Allbirds people luck in their attempt to pivot to GPUs. Maybe they can do it." He added, "I regard this as the first definitive sign that things have gone too far." Analyst Drops Coverage, Cites 'No Valuation Metric' William Blair analyst Dylan Carden described the stock's move as "hyperbolic," adding that there is "no valuation metric here" given the absence of a stable business model during the transition, TipRanks reported. He also pointed to structural factors such as a limited public float, momentum-driven trading and "unchecked hype" as key drivers behind the surge, warning the rally could prove fragile. Funding Seen As Insufficient For AI Ambitions Carden further downplayed the significance of the $50 million financing, calling it "a drop in the bucket" compared with the billions typically required to compete in the AI infrastructure and cloud computing space. According to Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings, Allbirds stock shows unfavorable price trends across the short, medium and long term. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: katz / Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Allbirds Becomes NewBird in Pivot From Shoes to AI | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The retailer announced that pivot Wednesday (April 15), saying it had struck a deal to raise $50 million to help it transition its business to artificial intelligence (AI) compute infrastructure, with the long-term goal of becoming a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider." According to a news release, the company plans to rename itself "NewBird AI" in connection with this change. The company's shoe business has been sold to American Exchange Group, "which intends to continue to build on Allbirds' legacy," per the release. The release adds that while enterprise spending on AI services and data centers are on the rise, North American data center vacancy rates are at historic lows, with market-wide compute capacity coming online through mid-2026 already spoken for. "The result is a market where enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations are unable to secure the compute resources they need to build, train and run AI at scale," according to the release. "NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap. The company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service." The announcement comes a little less than three months after Allbirds decided to close the remainder of its full-price stores in the U.S. to focus on its eCommerce platform, wholesale partnerships and international distributorships. "This is an important step for Allbirds, as we drive toward profitable growth under our turnaround strategy," Allbirds CEO Joe Vernachio said in a news release at the time. "We have been opportunistically reducing our brick-and-mortar portfolio over the past two years. By exiting these remaining unprofitable doors, we are taking actions to reduce costs and support the long-term health of the business." The company had 29 stores in the U.S. and two international locations in September of last year, down from a respective 45 and 15 two years earlier. As PYMNTS wrote soon after that announcement, Allbirds is part of a larger group of direct to consumer (D2C) companies reducing their brick-and-mortar footprint amid rising costs. "Physical retail brings rent, staffing, inventory management and buildout expenses that strain margins," that report said. "Returns add another layer of pressure, especially in apparel and footwear, where reverse logistics can erase the gains of an otherwise successful sale. As customer acquisition costs rise across digital channels, many D2C brands are discovering that operating dozens of locations amplifies risk rather than diversifying it."

Allbirds Stock Soars 670% On Sneaker To AI Pivot - Allbirds (NASDAQ:BIRD)

BIRD stock is flying. See the chart and price action here. Sneakers-To-AI Pivot? The move marks a stunning pivot from sneakers to servers as the company targets a future as "NewBird AI," providing GPU-as-a-Service and AI‑native cloud solutions. Under the plan, Allbirds will divest its namesake brand and related footwear assets to American Exchange Group in a roughly $39 million deal, effectively exiting the shoe business that made it famous while leaving the Allbirds brand to continue under new ownership. The public shell will instead pursue AI compute, using the $50 million convertible financing facility from an institutional investor -- expected to close in the second quarter -- to acquire high‑performance GPUs and offer long‑term leased access to customers who need dedicated AI capacity. Social Media Reactions On social media, traders greeted the announcement with a mix of disbelief and opportunism. Stocktwits user It_is_Ryan highlighted the sheer absurdity of a struggling shoe company suddenly chasing the AI gold rush. "Are we serious here? Is this real life," he wrote in a social media post. Over on X, ZeroHedge leaned into the sarcasm and also marveled at Allbirds' $50 million AI infrastructure pivot. Fundamentally, Allbirds is attempting a high‑wire act: a capital‑intensive pivot into one of the most crowded, scale‑driven corners of tech, starting from a base of negative free cash flow and a market cap that was barely above $20 million before the squeeze. Still, in an AI‑obsessed world, traders are treating NewBird AI as the latest speculative vehicle for GPU euphoria -- at least until the hard work of building a real business catches up with the meme. BIRD Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro data, Allbirds shares soared 707.43% to $20.11 at the time of publication on Wednesday. The stock hit an intra-day high of $24.31 and trading volume is hefty at 227 million shares. Photo: Michael Berlfein / Shutterstock This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Shoemaker Sells Business and Ventures into AI Chips; Shares Skyrocket 600%

Everything with an AI suffix seems to be making headlines now whether it is a shoemaker turning chipmaker or an LLM maker turning to design tools Whether artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world or not, it seems to be creating bizarre headlines with each passing day. And here's one: US-based Allbirds footwear sold its business and pivoted over to AI - Yes! you read that right. If you thought that was bizarre, what was more so is the 600% spike in share prices that this publicly traded US company saw in a day. #WTF Of course, that's not the only AI story that hit the headlines over the past twelve hours. Design company Figma also made news when an Anthropic top executive quit its board suddenly. But, not surprisingly as the AI startup is all set to introduce a new tool for designing websites making it a direct competitor to Figma. But, more of that later because the stofy of AllBirds turning into NewBird AI is what caught our attention first. Last month, the shoe seller sold its assets for $39 million, changed its name and announced that it was becoming a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. In an announcement made on the Allbirds investor relations website last evening, the company said it had entered into a definitive agreement with an (undisclosed) institutional investor for a $50 million convertible financing facility which will be used to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure - the current flavour of the stock markets. For starters, we can't recall any other such incident of an extreme pivot where a shoemaker and seller is turning into an AI infrastructure company. Allbirds, which had developed a cult following around San Francisco (the Silicon Valley area) had raised $7.25 million in a funding round back in September 2016 led by Maveron Lerer with Hippeau and Slow Ventures as participants. A decade down the line, the company decided to sell off the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group. Such is the magnetic pull that the frenetic pace of the AI ecosystem growth has caused. Of course, all of this would require shareholder approval at a meeting scheduled for May 18, 2026. However, NewBird AI has sought to sweeten the deal just the way other AI companies have done in recent times. Investors have been told that the company "anticipates issuing a special dividend during the third quarter of 2026 to stockholders of record as of the anticipated dividend record date of May 20, 2026." Can a company specialising in footwear tactically and strategically jump over into a field that is highly technical and absurdly competitive with all the Big Tech giants burning dollars to light up the dream of AI-led human existence? Those that wrote the script at Allbirds could not have come up with a more perfect one. Selling assets for $39 million, getting an investor to commit an additional $50 million and then simply make their way into a domain that is not as competitive as footwear but definitely more complicated due to the technological acumen required. For long time Silicon Valley watchers, such a pivot isn't new. Remember the time in 2017 when the Long Island Iced Tea Company had moved to what was then an equally lucrative bet - blockchain? That Nasdaq delisted the stock a year later after the initial bitcoin fever abated is also well-documented in the history of business pivots. One still recalls a whacky story about the event. "Want to increase company value on the open market? Just change your name to something blockchain," said TechCrunch in a article published on December 21, 2017. Looks like Allbirds is taking the right cue. Just that the pivot has shifted from blockchain to AI. Assuming all goes to plan with the shareholders we may soon have the new owners of Allbirds continue to make footwear for customers while NewBird could well be acquiring GPU assets to offer customers AI compute capacity. Whether pigs may fly or not after four weeks is for time to tell. However, rest assured that anything AI does fly. Else why would Anthropic executive Mike Krieger suddenly quit the board of Figma, a company with whom the AI startup had strong business ties whereby Anthropic Claude Code users were nudged to take up Figma products. The root cause is obviously a report doing the rounds in the media that Anthropic plans to introduce new tools for website designing. A report published by The Information said the tool will help both techies and non-techie users create websites, presentations, landing pages and products using natural language prompts. Is it part of Anthropic's next Claude Opus 4.7 model? We are not sure of that yet. However, what we are sure of is that investors are happy to throw money at anything AI. When the news of Anthropic's new model surfaced, share prices of Figma dropped 6% while that of Wix (another similar solution) dropped by 4%. And a shoemaker's shares spiked 600%. And true to form, even the Figma vs Anthropic story has a precedent. Remember the time when Google's Eric Schmidt quit Apple's Board back in the summer of 2009? That exit came barely a month after Google launched the Chrome operating system and less than a year after its Android-powered mobile phone showed up. Like in the present case, Google officially became direct competition to Apple. In the present scenario, Krieger exited the Figma board barely a day after Anthropic's plans for a new design tool broke. Till this development, Figma and Anthropic were thick-as-thieves selling each other's' solutions. In fact, the design company even wrote a blog post in February titled "From Claude to Figma: Turning production code to editable Figma designs. The journey of Figma once again defines how AI companies are moving forward. By partnering with a design company, the AI startup appears to have taught its foundational models enough about designing to chart out its own course. And from a user perspective, while Figma works well, designers might be happier simply using Claude Code as a one-stop solution. Once again it is advantage Anthropic! And to Allbirds too, they too may actually be chasing the same dream - to get investors to fork out more dollars during a future public listing. Why not though? We have crypto miners like CoreWeave already pivoting into chip rentals business and making something out of it, right?

Allbirds shares jump over 400% on plans to pivot to AI from sneakers

Shares of Allbirds surged more than five-fold on Wednesday after the footwear maker said it was raising capital and pivoting towards AI computing infrastructure. The San Francisco, California-based company said that it would execute a US$50 million convertible financing agreement with an institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to acquire graphics processing units (GPUs). Allbirds also plans to rebrand itself as "NewBird AI" and, over time, shift focus to offering cloud computing capacity and AI services, though it did not provide additional details on its new strategy. The overhaul comes amid robust investor enthusiasm ⁠for AI-related stocks and the data-centre infrastructure that supports it, hoping to benefit from the hundreds of billions of corporate investment pouring into the technology. "It looks like an attempt to capitalize on the AI movement. I don't see how Allbirds brings anything to the table beyond name recognition," said Bruce Winder, an independent retail consultant. Allbirds has been shutting most of its brick-and-mortar stores over the last few months owing to muted demand and switch to online partnerships. ⁠Last month, Allbirds said it had sold its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. The stock was last up 435 per cent at $13.33, valuing the company at $116 million, according to LSEG data. Allbirds was also among the most active orders on Fidelity's ⁠trading platform on Wednesday, signalling interest from retail traders. The move echoes past efforts by small U.S. firms that reshaped their business models to tap investor enthusiasm. In 2017, ⁠beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea Corp pivoted to blockchain technology under the name Long Blockchain Allbirds made its Nasdaq debut in 2021 at a valuation of $3 ⁠billion, but shed about 99% of its market value as of its last closing price.

Flailing shoe company makes wild pivot to AI, sending stock soaring 600%

Shares of Allbirds surged more than six-fold on Wednesday after the footwear maker said it was raising capital and pivoting towards AI computing infrastructure. The San Francisco-based company said that it would execute a $50 million convertible financing agreement with an institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to acquire graphics processing units (GPUs). Allbirds also plans to rebrand itself as "NewBird AI" and, over time, shift focus to offering cloud computing capacity and AI services, though it did not provide additional details on its new strategy. The overhaul comes amid robust investor enthusiasm for AI-related stocks and the data-center infrastructure that supports it, hoping to benefit from the hundreds of billions of corporate investment pouring into the technology. "It looks like an attempt to capitalize on the AI movement. I don't see how Allbirds brings anything to the table beyond name recognition," said Bruce Winder, an independent retail consultant. Allbirds has been shutting most of its brick-and-mortar stores over the last few months owing to muted demand and switch to online partnerships. Last month, Allbirds said it had sold its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. The stock was recently up more than 600% at $19.49, valuing the company at $116 million, according to LSEG data. Allbirds was also among the most active orders on Fidelity's trading platform on Wednesday, signaling interest from retail traders. The move echoes past efforts by small US firms that reshaped their business models to tap investor enthusiasm. In 2017, beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea pivoted to blockchain technology under the name Long Blockchain Allbirds made its Nasdaq debut in 2021 at a valuation of $3 billion, but shed about 99% of its market value as of its last closing price.

Allbirds, Artificial Intelligence and the Golden Age of Fraud

Taken public during the pandemic at a staggering $4bn valuation, the Silicon Valley-born sportswear brand's aura quickly faded, leading to a relentless cycle of losses and cash burn. It was only logical to see its market capitalization shed 99% of its value between November 2021 and April 2026, as Allbirds shuttered its North American stores and sold its brand for $39m - an amount equivalent to a mere quarter of its sales - in a final act of surrender. That was until the phenomenal rebound the day before yesterday, when the share price suddenly septupled in a single session, bringing the market cap back toward the $150m-dollar mark. The catalyst: Allbirds is rebranding as "NewBird AI" and embarking on a fifty-million-dollar order of GPUs, entirely financed by a convertible bond issued by a mysterious benefactor who remains anonymous. Notably, this pivot was announced via a press release on the Allbirds website but has yet to be the subject of a formal SEC filing. This is particularly intriguing given the nature of the development. Like CoreWeave, discussed earlier this week in these columns, Allbirds - or rather NewBird AI - is reportedly pivoting from sneakers to "GPU-As-A-Service," or "GPUaaS." Once in direct competition with Nike or Hoka, the sparrow now finds itself facing off against apex predators like Dell, Amazon, and their ilk. Does this pivot have any chance of succeeding? This is a question that will likely be ignored in the speculative fever that could turn NewBird into the "meme stock" of the moment, a trend that still largely characterizes anything remotely connected to artificial intelligence. It goes without saying that the current era - recently described as the "golden age of fraud" by the renowned Jim Chanos - is hauntingly reminiscent of the dotcom bubble at the end of the last century, when moribund listed companies simply added ".com" to their names and saw their valuations explode instantly. Following in the footsteps of cryptocurrencies, the computing power infrastructure sector seems to be attracting unscrupulous players whose blatant tactics remain mysteriously ignored by a regulator that appears to be asleep at the wheel. As is often the case, the authorities will wake up too late, amidst general consternation.

Allbirds shares jump over 400% on plans to pivot to AI from sneakers

April 15 (Reuters) - Shares of Allbirds surged more than five-fold on Wednesday after the footwear maker said it was raising capital and pivoting towards AI computing infrastructure. The San Francisco, California-based company said that it would execute a $50 million convertible financing agreement with an institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to acquire graphics processing units (GPUs). Allbirds also plans to rebrand itself as "NewBird AI" and, over time, shift focus to offering cloud computing capacity and AI services, though it did not provide additional details on its new strategy. The overhaul comes amid robust investor enthusiasm for AI-related stocks and the data-centre infrastructure that supports it, hoping to benefit from the hundreds of billions of corporate investment pouring into the technology. "It looks like an attempt to capitalize on the AI movement. I don't see how Allbirds brings anything to the table beyond name recognition," said Bruce Winder, an independent retail consultant. Allbirds has been shutting most of its brick-and-mortar stores over the last few months owing to muted demand and switch to online partnerships. Last month, Allbirds said it had sold its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. The stock was last up 435% at $13.33, valuing the company at $116 million, according to LSEG data. Allbirds was also among the most active orders on Fidelity's trading platform on Wednesday, signalling interest from retail traders. The move echoes past efforts by small U.S. firms that reshaped their business models to tap investor enthusiasm. In 2017, beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea Corp pivoted to blockchain technology under the name Long Blockchain Allbirds made its Nasdaq debut in 2021 at a valuation of $3 billion, but shed about 99% of its market value as of its last closing price. (Reporting by Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Savyata Mishra; Editing by Diti Pujara)