Allbirds Inc (NASDAQ: BIRD) (FRA: 8W80) skyrocketed on Wednesday after the company announced its major shift from making sneakers to building artificial intelligence compute infrastructure.
Investors drove shares up between 400 per cent and 582 per cent in a single trading day. The shoe maker’s market capitalization jumped from roughly US$21 million to as high as US$148 million before pulling back in after-hours trading.
Retail traders rushed in on platforms like Fidelity, turning the stock into one of the most actively traded names and sparking classic meme stock-type excitement fuelled by the current AI boom.
The surge followed news that Allbirds secured a US$50 million convertible financing facility from an institutional investor. The company plans to use the money to buy high-performance GPUs and offer them through long-term leases as part of a new “neocloud platform.”
It also intends to rebrand as ‘NewBird AI’ and position itself as a GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider. This move comes shortly after Allbirds sold its brand and footwear intellectual property to American Exchange Group for US$39 million. The sale allows the original Allbirds name to live on under new ownership while the remaining public company pivots entirely.
Observers reacted with a mix of amusement and skepticism. Analysts pointed out that the announcement contained few concrete details about products, partnerships or timelines.
Branding consultant Wei Kan called the strategy more of a liquidation than a true pivot. Furthermore, retail analyst Hitha Herzog described the rally as pure “AI mania” without proof of product or future earnings.
Independent consultant Bruce Winder added that Allbirds brings little to the AI space beyond its remaining name recognition. The move echoes other desperate pivots, such as Long Island Iced Tea Corp. rebranding to chase blockchain in 2017.
Allbirds started as a sustainability-focused brand. Founders Tim Brown, a former professional soccer player, and Joey Zwillinger, a renewable-resources expert, launched the company in 2015 with comfortable merino wool sneakers. The shoes gained popularity among Silicon Valley workers and celebrities including Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah Winfrey.
Allbirds went public in 2021 at a roughly US$4 billion valuation and expanded into stores worldwide. Yet demand soon faded. Sales fell nearly 50 per cent from US$298 million in 2022 to US$152 million in 2025.
The company reported a US$20.3 million loss in the third quarter of last year, closed its remaining U.S. full-priced stores earlier this year and watched its stock lose 99 per cent of its value before Wednesday’s dramatic jump.
This ambitious leap into the capital-intensive world of AI infrastructure carries significant risks. Success will require strong execution against established competitors, reliable delivery on GPU supply and customer demand and careful management of the convertible financing terms that still need stockholder approval.
Many question whether a former shoe company can compete effectively or avoid further volatility.
This Allbirds story is so insane:
→ $BIRD IPO'd in 2021 at a $4 billion valuation
→ Silicon Valley's favorite shoe
→ Lost 99.5% of its value in 4 years
→ Closed every US store
→ Sold the entire brand for $39 million
→ Renamed itself "NewBird AI"
→ Using $50M to buy… https://t.co/64zAD1ZpGO pic.twitter.com/SlcD7vWO3d— Josh Kale (@JoshKale) April 15, 2026
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