Shoe company turned AI company Allbirds is changing its name and named a new CEO.
An Allbirds store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, US, on Wednesday, May 4, 2023. Allbirds Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on May 9.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe San Francisco company announced Wednesday it will be changing its name to Smartbird and naming a new chief executive to lead its pivot from an eco-friendly shoe company to an AI startup. The company named Nadia Carlsten as its new CEO, replacing Joe Vernachio who was named CEO in 2024.
Carlsten was previously the CEO of AI company DCAI, where she forged a partnership with chip maker giant Nvidia to launch an AI supercomputer. It’s the second name change since April for the company, which was once a fixture of Silicon Valley .
“Smartbird is entering the market at a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI infrastructure,” said Carlsten in a statement. “ With a differentiated strategy, significant capital, and the opportunity to build an exceptional team, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on one of the most significant infrastructure opportunities of the next decade. ”Allbirds became a Silicon Valley favorite when it launched in 2021, known best for its eco-friendly wool sneakers.
The company just sold for a fraction of what it was once worth. In April, Allbirds sold its shoe business and physical assets for $39 million to the American Exchange Group to change its focus to AI. It announced it would be changing its business model to buy, sell and maintain servers equipped with AI to be rented out to other tech companies.
When Allbirds went public in 2021, it was valued at $4 billion and attracted many investors, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio, with its shoe model made from wool and eucalyptus. In the years following it struggled to continue the hype. Allbirds was started in 2007 by former pro football player Tim Brown in 2007 as a direct-to-consumer brand before changing to sell product in retail stores and expanding from sneakers to other clothing items like flip flops and leggings.
Despite many efforts to turn a profit, sales depleted and the company reported a net loss of $101 million in 2022. Allbirds also announced Lily Yan Hughes as its board chair. Hughes previously served as an independent director.
“We are thrilled to usher in this new era of the company with Nadia at the helm. Her groundbreaking work and visionary mindset will be instrumental in establishing a foothold in the market and building a scalable long-term solution for enterprise customers,” said Hughes.
“The board selected Nadia because of the breadth of her experience and demonstrated success delivering breakthrough ideas and initiatives at scale. ”Lily Wright is a reporting intern with the Business desk at the Los Angeles Times. She is a graduate of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and her writing has been published in local newspapers This Is Reno and Our Town Reno.
She previously worked in Costa Rica and Paris for international reporting covering science and the 2024 Summer Olympics.
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