June 17 (Reuters) - Allbirds changed its name to Smartbird on Wednesday and appointed former Amazon executive Nadia Carlsten as CEO, cementing the former footwear maker's pivot to an AI infrastructure firm and sending its shares up more than 30%.
The company had said in April it was shifting its focus to offer cloud computing capacityand AI services,leading to a more than five-fold surge in its shares. Including Wednesday's moves, they are up about 25% so far this year.
• Carlsten brings AI and quantum computing experience from DCAI, Alphabet spinoff SandboxAQ, and Amazon Web Services, and has advised the World Economic Forum on computing and AI.
• She will take over from Joe Vernachio, who is resigning from the company. Annie Mitchell will continue to serve as the chief financial officer, and Lily Yan Hughes has been appointed board chair.
• Smartbird said it provides AI infrastructure as a managed service to save upfront equipment costs for clients. It is in active discussions with potential customers and is designing its first cluster deployments.
• "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," Carlsten said.
• The company also said it had expanded its convertible financing agreement to $100 million from $50 million and had previously indicated it would use the proceeds to acquire graphics processors.
• Allbirds shut most of its brick-and-mortar stores and sold its brand and footwearassets to American Exchange Group for $39 million in March.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Jonathan Ananda)
