business
Allbirds Rebrands to Smartbird, Names Nadia Carlsten CEO
The former footwear company completed its second name change in two months as it continues its shift into AI infrastructure. Shares rose 39 percent on the announcement.
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Allbirds rebranded to Smartbird on Wednesday and named Nadia Carlsten chief executive and board member. Carlsten replaces Joe Vernachio. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and most recently served as CEO of DCAI, an AI infrastructure company that recently partnered with Nvidia and operates the Gefion supercomputer.
Shares of BIRD rose 39 percent on Wednesday. The company had changed its name to NewBird AI in April and said it would move from footwear into AI compute infrastructure and hardware.
Its market cap increased sevenfold after that announcement. A month before the April rebrand, Allbirds sold its footwear assets to American Exchange Group for $39 million. U.S. full-priced stores in February.
Myseum, a social media platform provider, shifted its focus to AI one day after Allbirds' April announcement. Allbirds was founded in 2015 by Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger. 80.
CoreWeave, which went public last year, began in crypto mining before pivoting to AI infrastructure.
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LeftNeutralRightStrategic AI transitionDesperate rebrand ploy
LeftNeutralRightTransitionPloy
CorroborationLimited · 2 sources
