{"id":357436,"date":"2026-03-31T21:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/357436\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:09:08","slug":"allbirds-once-worth-7b-sells-its-assets-for-68m-will-wind-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/357436\/","title":{"rendered":"Allbirds, once worth $7b, sells its assets for $68m, will wind down"},"content":{"rendered":"

US$4.1b peak valuation<\/p>\n

Allbirds reached its peak market valuation of US$4.1 billion ($7b) on November 3, 2021, the day of its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq.<\/p>\n

\"AllbirdsAllbirds founder Tim Brown at his Auckland City store in May 2022. The ex-All White captain started the sustainable shoe business from his Cuba St flat in 2014. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

But its shares have since lost 99.5% of their value.<\/p>\n

The US$39m transaction announced overnight at least represents a premium on Allbirds current market cap, which was sitting at US$19.5m in late trading.<\/p>\n

What went wrong?<\/p>\n

A horror run saw Covid supply chain issues, two big Wall Street Journal features claiming<\/a> the company\u2019s shoes \u2013 once worn by former President Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio and a legion of tech bros \u2013 had fallen out of fashion, and would fall apart in the rain.<\/p>\n

\"BrownBrown chats to Northburn Station manager and merino grower Bevan McKnight in 2018.<\/p>\n

Allbirds responded<\/a> that its footwear was durable and that its high percentage of repeat customers illustrated satisfaction with its product.<\/p>\n

There was more grief in 2023 as Amazon released dupes<\/a> at a much lower price.<\/p>\n

More recently, Allbirds\u2019 Vietnam-based manufacturing operation has faced challenges from Trump administration tariffs.<\/p>\n

Cash started to run low as revenue dropped and Allbirds lost money quarter after quarter, despite cost-cutting measures that included closing most of its stores.<\/p>\n

Straight out of Wellington<\/p>\n

Brown quit as co-CEO in May 2023 but remains a director.<\/p>\n

The Wellington Phoenix midfielder and All Whites captain started Allbirds from a Cuba St flat in 2014.<\/p>\n

He teamed with Joey Zwillinger, a San Francisco biotech engineer, to design shoes made from New Zealand merino wool, plus various recycled materials.<\/p>\n

\"AllbirdsAllbirds had a 20:1 reverse stock split in September 2024 after it was threatened with a Nasdaq delisting as its shares traded below US$1 for 30 days in a row.<\/p>\n

The pair staged a US$119,000 Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign then went on a venture capital roll with a US$1.7m seed round in 2016, a US$7.25m Series A the same year, a US$50m Series B round in 2017, a US$75m Series D in 2020 and a US$100 Series E the same year at a US$1.7b private equity valuation.<\/p>\n

Brown was briefly worth US$650m as Allbirds\u2019 stock doubled in value on its first day of Nasdaq trading in 2021.<\/p>\n

Cash crunch<\/p>\n

On November 12 last year, Allbirds reported a third-quarter net loss of US$20.3 million on revenue that fell 23.3% from the year-ago quarter to US$33m.<\/p>\n

The firm finished the quarter with cash of US$11.3m (net of debt). At the same point a year earlier, it had US$66m in the bank, despite aggressive cost-cutting.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Allbirds downgraded its forecast for its crucial December quarter.<\/p>\n

At the time, Clare Capital principal Mark Clare told the Herald that the prediction of lower Christmas period sales was ominous. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been unable to address underlying financial issues, with quarterly sales down 55% compared to September 2022,\u201d Clare said.<\/p>\n

He said it pained him to say it as a shareholder, friend of co-founder Tim Brown and a wearer of Allbirds, but he was forced to conclude that things would soon come to a head, with a trade sale one of the options on the table. <\/p>\n

\u201cManagement has been doing what you would expect, trying to improve sales \u2013 or reduce sales declines \u2013 and reducing costs,” Clare said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, that doesn\u2019t appear to be turning things around fast enough and there isn\u2019t an unlimited runway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Readers split<\/p>\n

After the Wall Street Journal mauled the Kiwi-founded shoe brand, some readers strongly defended<\/a> it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have six pairs and just love them. Am about to buy some more,\u201d Marie F said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo comfortable when travelling and everyday wear. Packed 3 pairs for trip to UK recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paddy G retorted, \u201cTwo years ago I bought a pair, slipped and fell \u2018a over k\u2019 on a wet pavement so only wore then in the dry, then they stretched so no support, basically use them as slippers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retired Herald economics columnist said this morning, \u201cSad to read about Allbirds. It has prompted me to buy a pair – my sixth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US$4.1b peak valuation Allbirds reached its peak market valuation of US$4.1 billion ($7b) on November 3, 2021, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[69368,188803,90156,19092,6256,12070,188804,6097,40147,27978,42565,2082,42,70418,302,13106,1132,43,6029,193,814,312,1128,3235,21324,40,38,41,39,1648,188805,32561,16550,1533,10000,19985],"class_list":["post-357436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-68m","tag-7b","tag-allbirds","tag-assets","tag-brown","tag-certain","tag-cofounded","tag-down","tag-estimated","tag-exall","tag-footwear","tag-for","tag-headlines","tag-intellectual","tag-its","tag-maker","tag-million","tag-news","tag-once","tag-other","tag-property","tag-says","tag-sells","tag-sold","tag-sustainable","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transaction","tag-us39","tag-value","tag-white","tag-will","tag-wind","tag-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}