Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown got the idea for the company while he was vice captain of the New Zealand football team. He had previously attended business school and used to make leather shoes for friends but was aware of how uncomfortable they were. In 2014, he received a research grant from the New Zealand wool industry to engineer a sneaker. He then launched his idea on Kickstarter, raising $119,000 in five days. After launching on Kickstarter, Brown teamed up with Joey Zwillinger, a biotech engineer and renewable materials expert. The co-founders began developing their process and officially launched Allbirds in March 2016. During their first year in business, the company raised $7.25 million from investors including Maveron, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, Slow Ventures, Peterson Partners, Antipodean and Western Technology Investment. In December 2017, Allbirds sued Steve Madden, alleging that the company's Traveler shoes look nearly identical to its wool runners. As of 2017, the company had 50 employees in their San Francisco headquarters, 40 employees at the Nashville warehouse and 350 contractors in a factory in South Korea. By October 2018, Allbirds sold a stake to investors at a valuation of $1.4 billion. In May 2020, Allbirds announced a controversial partnership with Adidas. The brand hopes to achieve the lowest carbon footprint performance shoe. Adidas has received criticism for its human right abuses, concerns around not paying its workers a living wage and deforestation. Allbirds has an ethical compass but due to the controversy, some believe this is the first step to a possible acquisition by Adidas.
Products
Allbirds began with one product, the Wool Runner. In 2017, the company released a second shoe, the Lounger. The shoes are made from castor bean oil and superfine merino wool, with each strand 17.5 microns wide. This material allows the shoe to be machine washable. On 24 October 2017, Allbirds launched a shoe line for children named Smallbirds. The limited edition children shoes are $55 a pair and are an exact replica of its adult Wool Runner. Smallbirds are for children ages 2–4 and are available in three colors: natural grey, Kea red and NZ blue. In March 2018, Allbirds began offering eucalyptus tree runners, making it the company's first footwear product made primarily without wool. Allbirds also offers a version of its Lounger shoe made from eucalyptus trees, in addition to wool. They also launched the Tree Skipper, a boat shoe made of the same material. In August 2018, Allbirds released flip-flops made from SweetFoam. In November 2018, the Tree Topper was released, a high-top sneaker which combines the company's eucalyptus tree fiber, wool, and sugar cane footwear materials. In May 2019, flats were added to the Allbirds product list, made from the same materials as the Tree Topper. In August 2019, Allbirds expanded its product line to include wool socks.
Partnerships
In November 2017, Allbirds and Outdoor Voices collaborated on a line of athleisure apparel which included two limited edition colors of the Allbirds wool runners. In early 2018, five limited edition colors of Allbirds were released, available for purchase at pop-ups inside of five US and two Canadian Nordstrom locations, in addition to the Nordstrom website. In May 2018, Shake Shack branded pairs of Allbirds tree runners were sold at Madison Square Park in New York City for one day. In September 2018, Allbirds collaborated with Air New Zealand to create an eye mask for its business class passengers.
