Allbirds, the sustainable footwear company known for its wool sneakers, has officially renamed itself Smartbird Inc. This move cements the company's pivot into an AI infrastructure firm, a transformation first announced in April when the company stated it would shift its focus to offer AI services and cloud computing capacity.
To lead this new direction, the company has appointed Nadia Carlsten as president and CEO. Carlsten is a former Amazon Web Services executive and previously led a Danish AI infrastructure group.
The shift has resulted in significant market growth. Following the announcement of its pivot in April, shares saw a more than five-fold surge. On Wednesday, shares rose more than 50% in the morning before pulling back. Allbirds originally went public in 2021 at a valuation of $4.1 billion.