A shoe company is now an AI company, and the stock went up 700%. Allbirds - the sustainable sneaker brand that was once a tech-bro favorite - announced on Wednesday that it's selling its footwear business to American Exchange Group and reinventing itself as NewBird AI. The company said it secured a $50 million convertible financing deal to buy processing units and build AI compute infrastructure.
Allbirds went public in 2021 during the boom in direct-to-consumer brands, but the business fell apart fast. Between 2022 and 2025, sales dropped nearly 50% - from $298 million to $152 million - as trends shifted, competitors moved in, and customer costs climbed. By Tuesday's close, the entire company was worth about $21 million.
Allbirds said it will use the $50 million to buy processing units and build AI infrastructure under the NewBird AI name, sending shares from under $3 to over $17 - a gain of more than 700%.
A tiny company that sold sneakers just rebranded as an AI firm and watched its stock jump seven-fold in a single day. That tells you more about how the market prices anything with "AI" in the name than it does about Allbirds' future as a compute provider. The company hasn't turned a profit in years.
