Allbirds, which was launched in 2016 with wool-based running shoes, managed to amass a devoted following among tech-savvy, environmentally conscious buyers. So much so that the company went public on the Nasdaq in November 2021 and raised roughly $303 million at a valuation near $4.1 billion. Everything looked good on paper, but what followed was a long, slow erosion of both revenue and investor confidence.
Allbirds' sustainability credentials it had built over the years and its cultural cachet never translated into durable profits in a brutally competitive retail market. The company had closed all of its full-price U.S. retail stores in February 2026. The revenue had fallen nearly 50 per cent from peak levels by the time the unexpected AI pivot was announced. The $39 million sale price was a clear indication of how far things had fallen since the IPO.
