Allbirds: From shoes to AI compute (seriously)

Allbirds will pivot from shoes to AI compute infrastructure.

Folks say they don't ring bells at market tops, but Allbirds may have come close. Now that Allbirds has jettisoned shoes for GPUs it will known going forward as NewBird AI. To fund this pivot, Allbirds has raised $50 million in a convertible debt deal.

The plan is for the company formerly known as Allbirds to become a GPU-as-a-service provider. In March, Allbirds said it is selling its footwear brand and assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million.

In its annual report, Allbirds said there's "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern. For 2025, Allbirds reported a net loss of $77.3 million on revenue of $152.47 million.

Allbirds shares were up about 800% at last check. Part of that surge was due to short covering (actually more like complete wipeout) since nearly 17% of the stock float was sold short.

In a statement, Allbirds laid out the strategy for when it becomes NewBird AI.

• Spend the initial $50 million on GPU assets.
• Deploy that compute for customers seeking dedicated access.
• Evolve to be a fully integrated GPU-as-a-service provider.
• Ultimately, become an AI neocloud platform.

The issue is that Allbirds, err NewBird AI, is going to need a lot more than $50 million to become a neocloud.