Allbirds becomes Smartbird and pitches sovereign AI infrastructure

TechCrunch reported that Allbirds sold its shoe business for $43 million, raised another $100 million from the stock market, and relaunched as Smartbird, an AI infrastructure company led by former AWS and DCAI executive Nadia Carlsten. Smartbird plans to serve customers that want direct control over servers running their models, often because of data sovereignty or business-model constraints, rather than competing directly with hyperscalers or neoclouds on raw scale or price. Carlsten said the company is now recruiting a leadership team and expects compute clusters for several customers by year-end.

Key details: Published June 19, 2026 at 13:00 UTC, Allbirds sold its shoe business for $43 million, The company raised another $100 million from the stock market, Smartbird is targeting managed AI infrastructure for customers that need control and data sovereignty.

Why it matters: The Smartbird pivot shows how strong the AI infrastructure narrative has become, with even non-tech public companies trying to reposition around sovereign compute demand.