Now it wants to be known as an artificial intelligence company.
Retailer Announce It pivoted on Wednesday (April 15), saying it had closed a deal to raise $50 million to help it transition its business to artificial intelligence (AI) compute infrastructure, with a long-term goal of becoming a “fully integrated GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) and cloud-native AI solutions provider.”
According to a press release, the company plans to rename itself to “NewBird AI” in connection with this change. The company’s shoe business was sold to American Exchange Group“which intends to continue to build on the Allbirds legacy,” according to the statement.
The statement adds that while enterprise spending on AI and data center services is on the rise, North America Data center Vacancy rates are at historic lows, with market-wide computing capacity coming online until mid-2026 already talked about.
“The result is a market in which enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations are unable to secure the computing resources they need to build, train, and operate AI at scale,” according to the statement.
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“NewBird AI is built to help fill this gap. The company will initially seek high-performance, low-latency compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers cannot reliably serve.”
The announcement comes just under three months after the release of Allbirds I decided to close The remainder of its full-price stores are in the US to focus on its e-commerce platform, wholesale partnerships and international distribution.
“This is an important step for Allbirds as we move toward profitable growth under our transformation strategy,” Allbirds CEO Joe Vernacio he said in a press release at the time.
“We have opportunistically reduced our brick-and-mortar portfolio over the past two years. By exiting these remaining unprofitable doors, we are taking actions to reduce costs and support the long-term health of the business.”
The company had 29 U.S. stores and two international locations in September last year, down from 45 and 15 stores two years ago.
As PYMNTS wrote shortly after the announcement, Allbirds is part of a larger group of direct-to-consumer (D2C) companies. Reducing the effects of brick and mortar Amid rising costs.
“Physical retail brings rent, staffing, inventory management and construction expenses that pressure margins,” that report said.
“Returns add another layer of pressure, especially in apparel and footwear, where reverse logistics can erase the gains of a successful sale. With the rising costs of customer acquisition across digital channels, many D2C Brands They discover that running dozens of sites magnifies risk rather than diversifies it.
