Allbirds is trading in its wool sneakers for GPUs. The once high-flying shoe brand said Wednesday it plans to reinvent itself as an artificial-intelligence infrastructure company—yes, seriously. CNBC reports on the gambit: The business, to be renamed NewBird AI, aims to buy "high-powered, low-latency AI compute hardware" and lease access to it under long-term contracts. The Wall Street Journal reports Allbirds said it has raised $50 million in financing from an unnamed institutional investor.
The move follows last month's agreement to sell Allbirds' intellectual property and other assets for $39 million to American Exchange Group, which plans to keep selling products under the Allbirds brand; Allbirds, Inc. will continue to operate after the asset sale under the NewBird AI name. The Financial Times cites an SEC filing that specifies the following:
- "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."
While shares are trading up 467%, at $14.12, on the news as of this writing, the Times quips, "We'd suggest running away as quickly as possible, if anyone can suggest a suitable brand of footwear for the task." It's a bit of deja vu for TechCrunch, which recalls Long Island Iced Tea's 2017 pivot into blockchain technology. The stock surged 275% on the rebrand to Long Blockchain Corp, but by 2018 the stock had been delisted from the NASDAQ.
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