Smartbird exits the shoe business for AI infrastructure — but can it compete?
allbirds pivot to ai infrastructure firm smartbird with $100m in capital. targeting enterprises needing data sovereignty without hyperscalers.
allbirds completed its pivot to become smartbird, an ai infrastructure provider, selling its shoe business for $43m and raising $100m to fund the transition. under new ceo nadia carlsten, the company plans to build agile compute clusters for hundreds to thousands of chips, targeting clients in pharma, energy, and the public sector who need direct server control and data sovereignty. smartbird will not compete on price against hyperscalers or neoclouds but instead offers specialized, managed deployments for internal ai projects. carlsten expects to deploy clusters for customers by the end of the year, betting that demand for secure, non-public ai infrastructure will sustain the business model.