Allbirds (ticker BIRD) completed a total rebrand to Smartbird, Inc. This follows the complete sale of its footwear brand and assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. The former “Silicon Valley sneaker” startup is now officially an AI infrastructure provider.
Here is the breakdown of the major changes:
The New CEO: Dr. Nadia Carlsten.
- The Appointment: Smartbird appointed Dr. Nadia Carlsten as its new President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), taking over from Joe Vernachio, who resigned.
- Her Resume: Carlsten brings serious technical horsepower, having recently served as CEO of the Danish Centre for AI Innovation (DCAI) where she launched an AI supercomputer. She has also held leadership roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS) (where she helped launch Amazon Braket) and Google spin-off SandboxAQ.
Lily Yan Hughes has been appointed the new Board Chair.
The Second Name Change.
- Smartbird: The company officially adopted Smartbird Inc. on June 17, 2026.
- The “NewBird AI” Rebrand: The company previously announced a pivot to AI computing in April 2026, stating it would operate under the name “NewBird AI”. They have now officially shifted the name again to Smartbird.
- Stock Symbol: Despite completely dropping the footwear business, the company trades on the Nasdaq under the exact same ticker symbol, “BIRD”.
The Radical Pivot to AI Infrastructure.
- What they do now: Smartbird provides managed, dedicated AI infrastructure as a service. The company targets mid-market enterprises (like pharma and finance) that need private cloud AI clusters but want to avoid the massive upfront capital investment and operational complexity of building and maintaining them themselves.
- Financials: The company doubled its convertible financing facility to $100 million to fund the acquisition of heavy-duty computing hardware (such as GPUs) needed for these server clusters.
- Where the shoes are: As mentioned, all Allbirds physical retail operations and inventory were sold. In a recent interview, CEO Carlsten stated she was “blissfully unaware of all things Allbirds” and expects that in a few months, people won’t even remember the shoes.
