Allbirds to sell shoe brands, rebrand as NewBird AI

Allbirds announced it has agreed to sell its shoe brands and related intellectual property to American Exchange Group and will invest $50 million in a new GPU data center as it rebrands to NewBird AI. The company said the $50 million will be funded through a financing facility expected to be finalized in the second quarter, and that the data center is planned to begin operations later this year.

The announcement triggered a surge in trading activity and briefly pushed Allbirds shares to a one-month high of $21.95 before the stock pulled back to $16.99. Trading volume rose to roughly 875 times the company’s typical daily level. Short interest exceeds 18% of the float, with available shares to cover shorts estimated at less than half a day.

Allbirds began as a sustainable footwear brand and went public in 2021 at about a $4 billion valuation. In recent quarters the company reported average quarterly revenue above $30 million and net losses in the range of $15 million to $20 million for each of the last three reported quarters.

Corporate filings outline plans to operate a fleet of GPUs for artificial intelligence compute and to adopt the NewBird AI name. Company executives described the financing and facility plan as positioning the company to grow AI compute capacity, and they said construction and equipment deployment are expected to take several months.

Market participants compared the pivot to prior cases of public companies shifting into AI data centers after running crypto mining operations. Analysts and investors pointed to risks including the time required to build and commission a data center, the capital intensity of competing in AI compute, and the absence of established AI revenue streams.

The company must complete the financing, finish the data center buildout and complete the rebrand before the new business will begin operations and generate revenue under the NewBird AI name.