San Francisco, April 15, 2026, 07:19 PDT
Allbirds announced Wednesday that it has lined up as much as $50 million in senior secured convertible notes—debt tied to company assets with the option to convert into equity—and will shift its focus to AI compute infrastructure, following the sale of its footwear operations. The move sent shares surging. At 10:04 a.m. ET, the stock was trading at $10.10, up $7.61 from Tuesday’s close, after briefly hitting $12.66 earlier.
Only two weeks ago, Allbirds struck a $39 million deal to offload its brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group. Now, the company that not long ago claimed a $3.3 billion valuation at its 2021 Nasdaq debut is taking a sharp pivot.
An unnamed institutional investor is set to purchase the notes, with the deal slated to close in the second quarter, according to the company. Following the asset sale, Allbirds intends to rebrand as NewBird AI, redirecting the initial funds toward buying graphics processing units—GPUs, the chips behind AI model training and inference. The plan: launch a GPU-as-a-service business, renting out computing power.
Allbirds set May 18 for shareholders to weigh in on the asset sale, according to a preliminary proxy filed Wednesday. Investors will also decide on a charter amendment to remove the company’s public-benefit corporation label—a structure that bakes a public mission into its charter. There’s another vote, too: Nasdaq rules require approval since the notes could convert into over 19.99% of Class A shares.
Allbirds told investors that anyone on record as of May 20 stands to get a special dividend in the third quarter—if the asset sale goes through. According to the same proxy, shareholders who hold onto their stock will still have Nasdaq-listed shares in the newly renamed company once the dividend gets distributed.
Allbirds is shifting gears after a prolonged pullback. The company shuttered its last full-price U.S. stores in the first quarter. For 2025, revenue dropped 19.7% to $152.5 million, and the net loss slimmed to $77.3 million. In its annual report, Allbirds flagged “substantial doubt” about its ability to operate as a going concern. Allbirds, Inc.
Last month, Allbirds unveiled a $39 million sale of its brand. Chief Executive Joe Vernachio said the move “sets up the brand to thrive in the years ahead.” With the agreement, American Exchange picks up the Allbirds name and all related intellectual property. The listed company? It’s shifting focus to AI, planning a rebrand. Reuters
Allbirds now finds itself squeezed into a busy corner of the market. CoreWeave and Nebius, both specialized AI cloud providers, are scrambling to secure limited computing resources. Just this week, Reuters said Jane Street agreed to spend roughly $6 billion on CoreWeave cloud services, right after Meta added $21 billion to its own CoreWeave deal. Back in February, CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator told Reuters, “We made the decision to go ahead and to build faster so that we can deliver more infrastructure.” Reuters
Still, there’s tension in the proposal. The proxy seeks shareholder approval for a dissolution plan, yet management signals it will keep NewBird AI running after selling off assets. The board has left itself room to either proceed with or scrap the dissolution later. On top of that, the notes are senior secured by company assets, but only the initial $5 million tranche is defined—any further funding is entirely up to the investor.
So on May 18, shareholders face a blunt question: can a company best known for wool sneakers carve out a spot in the capital-heavy AI compute rental game? The difference in scale is striking. CoreWeave, for instance, is forecasting $30 billion to $35 billion in capex this year.
