Allbirds goes AI

Allbirds — San Francisco's once-ubiquitous wool shoe brand — is swapping out its reputation as a tech-bro staple for something more lucrative: AI.

Why it matters: Allbirds isn't just adjusting its business model, it's leaving the industry that made it a household name.

The company announced yesterday that it had secured $50 million in financing to rebrand as "NewBird AI" and move into selling AI computing infrastructure.

• The pivot comes just two weeks after agreeing to sell its core footwear business for about $39 million, once valued around $4 billion at its peak.

State of play: The new funding will be used to buy high-performance GPUs — the chips powering AI systems — and rent them out to companies that need computing capacity but can't get enough from traditional cloud providers, the SF Chronicle reports.

• The company's stock surged nearly 600% after the announcement, with shares climbing from about $3 to $17 in a day.