By Shashwat Chauhan
April 16 (Reuters) – A day after footwear maker Allbirds rose 582% on its plan to “pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure,” social media firm Myseum was up 146% early on Thursday, in the latest sign of an investor mania for artificial intelligence stocks.
Early on Wednesday, Allbirds said it would rebrand itself as “NewBird AI,” having agreed to sell most of its assets and intellectual property for $39 million last month. Allbirds said at the time that it planned to seek shareholder approval for the “dissolution and wind-down of the company.”
After the close on Wednesday, Myseum said it was “now operating under the new name “Myseum.AI,” as it moves to integrate privacy-focused AI into its secure messaging and social media platforms.
The firms’ advertised pivot to AI underscores how the sector’s status as a magnet for investment capital can also provide small firms with struggling legacy businesses a chance to raise funds — potentially at the expense of investors who buy in after the shares have already run up. On Thursday, Allbirds was down 24.6%.
“If I see this sort of thing happening it’s not necessarily increasing my confidence in the market, because this just screams euphoria where people are just buying,” said Stephan Kemper, chief investment strategist at BNP Paribas Wealth Management.
“Like in the 2000s where you just had to have dot com in your company, and that was more than enough for people to rush into the market and buy your stock.”
This pivot echoes past efforts by small U.S. firms that reshaped their business models to tap investor enthusiasm.
In 2017, beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea Corp pivoted to blockchain technology under the name Long Blockchain. U.S. securities regulators later brought an insider trading case that resulted in one defendant agreeing to pay $75,000 without admitting or denying the allegations.
Allbirds’ announcement sent its shares up as much as 872% on Wednesday. The company said it would execute a $50 million convertible financing agreement with an unnamed institutional investor and plans to use the proceeds to acquire graphics processing units (GPUs).
“When a company that sold its shoe brand for $39 million –less than ten cents on the dollar of its peak valuation – can add a $127 million of market capitalization in a single trading session simply by announcing a pivot to GPU leasing, the market is not pricing risk,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial. “It is pricing narrative.”
Allbirds posted a loss $77.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, and $93.3 million a year earlier.
More recent examples of companies trying to catch the AI hype include New Era Helium transforming into New Era Energy & Digital in 2025 and crypto miner Core Scientific changing into a data center service provider in 2024.
Micro-cap stock Allied Gaming & Entertainment also surged on Thursday, up 28.8%, after coming out with an AI-related announcement.
HOW THE MARKET TOOK IT
A record $3.87 billion worth of Allbirds shares changed hands on Wednesday, per LSEG data. Retail traders also jumped in and bought more than $5.2 million worth of its shares in the biggest one-day move on record, according to data from Vanda Research.
It was among the most actively traded U.S. stocks by retail investors on Wednesday, ranking third by buy orders after Tesla and Nvidia, according to J.P.Morgan data.
The company’s market capitalization swelled up to almost $148 million as of last close, surging from $21.7 million – which was down 99% from levels seen around its 2021 Nasdaq debut.
More than 16.3% of Allbirds’ free floated shares are shorted and Wednesday’s spike left short sellers with mark-to-market losses of approximately $13.6 million, according to data analytics firm Ortex.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan, Avinash P and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru; editing by Arpan Varghese and Colin Barr)
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