In this article, we will take a detailed look at theJeff Bezos Investments in 2024: 11Companies Bezos Is Investing In. To see more such companies, click Jeff Bezos Investments in 2024: 5Companies Bezos Is Investing In.
Rising interest rates and overall macroeconomic volatility kept a lid on startup funding in 2023 as investors remained in a wait and see mode about the future and preferred to invest in safe and already mature companies like Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQAMZN), Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META). A detailed report on the state of venture capital and future predictions from Cambridge Associates cited data from PitchBook which said that median change in valuations for follow-on financing rounds for early-stage companies in 2023 was 1.7x, the lowest change in any year since 2016. However, the Cambridge Associates report said that while 2023 was a bad year, low investments in 2022 and 2023 means there would be ample capital for VC funds to invest in worthy startups in 2024. The report also said most of the venture capital investments in 2024 would be directed towards AI. While Cambridge Associates said AI is not a new thing, it expects that the huge advancements in the domain after the generative AI boom would result in real innovation growth in the next few years.
Jeff Bezos' Thoughts on Innovation
But for innovation-focused billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who is worth about $177 billion as of January 20, the state of venture capital markets and what could happen in the next few months rarely matters. In an interview with senior tech writer Peter Burrows, Bezos said that there's no "bad time" to innovate when asked about Bezos' history of getting criticized for spending extravagantly on innovation.
"You should be doing it when times are good and when times are tough—and you want to be doing it around things that your customers care about."
Food technology. Environment. Biotech. AI. Neurotechnology. These are the main themes in Jeff Bezos' investing philosophy as evident from his long list of investments.
What matters to Bezos, according to him, is that his company is truly focusing on innovation and he tries not to get bogged down by stock price movements.
"We have three all-hands meetings a year, and I'll tell people that if the stock is up 30% this month, please don't feel you are 30% smarter. Because when the stock is down 30% a month from now, it's not going to feel that good to feel 30% dumber. When the Internet bubble burst, our stock went from over 100 a share to a low right after September 11 of 6. Throughout that entire period, the fundamentals of the business continuously improved. You can see the stock price going in the opposite direction of the fundamentals. So it wasn't that worrisome to us, " Bezos said in the interview with Burrows.
While Amazon's success over the years has proved that Bezos's innovation philosophy is right, it's interesting to take a look at the top investments of Jeff Bezos' investment company Bezos Expeditions. Billionaires like Bezos are always on the lookout to find new, promising startups in emerging domains that can grow to become giants in the future like Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQAMZN), Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META).
Methodology
For this article we took a look at Bezos Expeditions, Pitchbook, TechCrunch and some other reliable sources to find out which startups Bezos has been investing in. From these companies we selected 11 important companies in which Bezos invested in over the past few years. We gave preference to Bezos' most recent investments.
11. Anthropic
Even though Jeff Bezos is not a direct investor in Anthropic, the company behind ChatGPT rival AI assistant Claude, Anthropic deserves an entry in our list since Amazon decided to invest up to $4 billion in the company in 2023. According to the deal, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)will initially invest $1.25 billion in Anthropic and the investment would later be increased to $4 billion.
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)management talked about Anthropic in its Q3 earnings call:
Recently, we announced that leading LLM maker Anthropic chose AWS as its primary cloud provider and will use Trainium and Inferentia to build, train and deploy its future LLMs. As part of this partnership, AWS and Anthropic will collaborate on the future development of Trainium and Inferentia technology. We believe this collaboration will be helpful in continuing to accelerate the price performance advantages that Trainium and Inferentia deliver for customers. In the middle layer which we think of as large language models as a service, we recently introduced general availability for Amazon Bedrock which offers customers access to leading LLMs from third-party providers like Anthropic, Stability AI, coherent AI 21 as well as from Amazon’s own LLMs called Titan, where customers can take those models, customize them using their own data but without leaking that data back into the generalized LLM, have access to the same security, access control and features that they run the rest of their applications within AWS all through a managed service.
In the last couple of months, we’ve announced the imminent addition of Meta’s Llama 2 model to Bedrock, the first time it’s being made available through a fully managed service. Also through our expanded collaboration with Anthropic, customers will gain access to future Anthropic models through Bedrock with exclusive early access to unique features, model customization and the ability to fine-tune the models. And Bedrock has added several new compelling features, including the ability to create agents which can be programmed to accomplish tasks like answering questions or automating workflows. In these early days of generative AI, companies are still learning which models they want to use which models they use for what purposes and which model sizes they should use to get the latency and cost characteristics they desire.
Read the entire earnings call transcript here.
10. Synchron
Neurotechnology and brain Synchron ranks 10th in our list of the companies Jeff Bezos has been investing in. In 2022, Synchron raised $75 million in a funding round led by ARCH Venture Partners. In addition to Bezos Expeditions, Bill Gates' investment firm also took part in the round. Last year it was reported that Synchron was testing a technology (The Synchron Switch) that would allow people with no or very limited physical mobility to operate technology such as cursors or smart devices using their mind.
9. Arrived Homes
In a budget as little as $100, you can own a property and then rent it out. That's the promise and business model of Arrived Homes, a fractional real estate platform company which raised about $160 million in funding and debt financing, including two infusions fromJeff Bezos'Bezos Expeditions.
Last year, Arrived Homes launched the Arrived Single Family Residential Fund which would allow investors to invest on their own schedule without having to wait for individual properties to launch.
8. NotCO
NotCo is a Chilean food technology company that uses algorithms and AI to find out the best combinations of plants to create alternatives to animal-based foods.
In 2022, NotCo raised another $70 million in fresh funding, led by Princeville Capital. Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, which had already invested in the firm, again took part in the new funding round, along with Tiger Global, L Catterton, Kaszek Ventures and MercadoLibre CEO Marcos Galperin.
7. Cloud Paper
Cloud Paper is one of the most unique names in the list of companies Jeff Bezos has been investing in. Cloud Paper aims to impact the traditional paper industry. Cloud Paper makes bamboo-based tree-free toilet paper which it sources from "responsibly-managed forests."
In 2022, Cloud Paper raised $5 million in a funding round in which Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions took part. Cloud Paper planned to launch commercial-size toilet paper and touchless dispensers. While major companies like Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQAMZN), Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) always steal the show because of their clout and size in the investing space, wise investors are always on the lookout to find smaller, promising companies like Cloud Paper to invest in.
6. Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN)
California-based EV company Rivian Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:RIVN) ranks 6th in our list of the top Jeff Bezos investments in 2024. According to some reports Amazon owns about 10% to 15% stake in Rivian.
In 2019, Amazon signed a deal with Rivian AutomotiveInc (NASDAQ:RIVN)to have at least 100,000 electric delivery vans for itself on the road by 2030.
As of the end of the third quarter of 2023, 35 hedge funds out of the 910 funds tracked by Insider Monkey had stakes in Rivian AutomotiveInc (NASDAQ:RIVN). The biggest hedge fund stakeholder of Rivian AutomotiveInc (NASDAQ:RIVN)during this period was Daniel Sundheim's D1 Capital Partners which owns a $327 million stake in Rivian AutomotiveInc (NASDAQ:RIVN).
In addition to Rivian, hedge funds are also investing heavily in Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQAMZN), Alphabet Inc Class C (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META).
Here is whatBaron Global Advantage Fundhas to say about Rivian Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIVN) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“Shares ofRivian Automotive, Inc., a U.S.-based electric vehicle manufacturer, continued their volatile trading, and after declining during the first half of 2023, rose 45.7% during the third quarter. Rivian’s unit economics are improving as a result of several factors: i) the company’s production rate is increasing, which enables it to better absorb fixed costs; ii) Rivian is ramping-up the usage of more price effective technologies, such as LFP batteries and its in-house developed motor, Enduro; and iii) the company is benefiting from renegotiated supplier agreements, as its scale and purchasing power have significantly increased over the last few years. Management expects continued progress in profitability ahead as Rivian further scales production. We remain shareholders and believe that the release of Rivian’s new smaller SUV dubbed R2, which is planned for early 2024, would enable the company to compete in the higher volume SUV segment, and significantly expand its addressable market. On the liquidity front, we expect the company to raise additional funds to support its longer-term business plans.”
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Disclosure.None.Jeff Bezos Investments in 2024: 11Companies Bezos Is Investing Inwas initially published on Insider Monkey.
As an enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of venture capital, innovation, and investment trends, let's delve into the concepts and companies mentioned in the article about Jeff Bezos' investments in 2024.
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Venture Capital Landscape: The article highlights the challenges faced by startup funding in 2023 due to rising interest rates and macroeconomic volatility. Despite this, it suggests that ample capital would be available for VC funds to invest in worthy startups in 2024, with a particular emphasis on AI.
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Jeff Bezos' Investment Philosophy: Bezos emphasizes continuous innovation regardless of market conditions. He prioritizes areas such as food technology, environment, biotech, AI, and neurotechnology in his investment strategy, focusing on long-term customer impact rather than short-term stock price movements.
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Bezos Expeditions: This is Jeff Bezos' personal venture capital firm, through which he makes investments in various companies across different sectors.
Now, let's explore the 11 companies Bezos has invested in:
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Anthropic: Though not a direct investment, Amazon committed up to $4 billion in Anthropic in 2023. Anthropic focuses on large language models (LLMs) and collaborates with AWS to develop technology for building, training, and deploying future LLMs.
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Synchron: Synchron, a neurotechnology company, raised $75 million in 2022, with participation from Bezos Expeditions. It's developing technology to enable people with limited mobility to control devices using their minds.
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Arrived Homes: Arrived Homes is a fractional real estate platform that allows investors to own and rent out properties. Bezos Expeditions has invested in the company, which launched the Arrived Single Family Residential Fund.
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NotCo: A Chilean food technology company utilizing algorithms and AI to create plant-based alternatives to animal-based foods. Bezos Expeditions participated in a $70 million funding round in 2022.
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Cloud Paper: Cloud Paper manufactures bamboo-based, tree-free toilet paper. Bezos Expeditions participated in a $5 million funding round in 2022, supporting the company's efforts to impact the traditional paper industry.
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Rivian Automotive Inc: Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer, ranks among Bezos' top investments. Amazon holds a significant stake in Rivian, and the company aims to produce electric delivery vans for Amazon by 2030.
These investments reflect Bezos' diverse interests, ranging from advanced technology like AI and neurotechnology to sustainable solutions in real estate and food technology. His approach aligns with his philosophy of investing in areas with significant potential for innovation and long-term impact.
