{"id":381272,"date":"2026-04-15T20:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381272\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T20:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:33:09","slug":"kiwi-founded-shoe-company-allbirds-pivots-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381272\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi founded shoe company Allbirds pivots to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Former<\/p>\n

\nAllbirds founder Tim Brown. (File photo)
\nPhoto: Supplied\n<\/p>\n

The New Zealand founded but US based footwear company Allbirds is to make a surprising pivot from shoes into AI computing.<\/p>\n

The Nasdaq listed company once valued at over (US)$4 billion announced this month it was selling its intellectual property and other assets<\/a> to a private firm, American Exchange Group for (US)$39 million.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday, the company said it was now going to focus on AI under the name of NewBird AI.<\/p>\n

The company also announced a deal to raise up to (US)$50 million in funding to carry out the new strategy.<\/p>\n

It said it expected to use the money to acquire AI computing assets and serve customers needing dedicated access to AI computing services.<\/p>\n

Shares in the company surged on the news, from around $3 a share to $18 giving the company a market value of around (US)$160 million.<\/p>\n

Allbirds, known for its merino wool sneakers, was founded in 2015 by former All White Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger, and listed on the Nasdaq in 2021.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allbirds founder Tim Brown. (File photo) Photo: Supplied The New Zealand founded but US based footwear company Allbirds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[48,138,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-381272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-audio","tag-business","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381272","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=381272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}