Does Amazon Invest In Startups

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Amazon To Invest $150m In Funds That Back Underrepresented Entrepreneurs

How To Invest In Startups 2022 | Angel Investing For Beginners

Amazon.com Inc. will invest $150 million in venture capital firms, accelerators, incubators and venture studios that provide funding to entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds.

The investment will be made as part of an initiative called Amazon Catalytic Capital that Amazon announced today. Over the next year, the company expects to support more than 10 funds and 200 companies through the initiative.

Amazon will invest in funds that focus on Black, Latino, Indigenous, women and LGBTQIA+ founders. The funds backed by the company will primarily make seed and pre-seed investments. Amazon detailed today that to date it has invested in four funds: Collide Capital, Elevate Future Fund, Share Ventures and the Techstars Rising Stars Fund.

Collide Capital is a Black-owned seed and pre-seed venture capital fund led by two founders under the age of 35. The firm has backed in excess of 40 companies, more than 80% of which are led by Black, Latino or female founders.

Elevate Future Fund, the second fund that has received an investment from Amazon Catalytic Capital, focuses on increasing funding to underrepresented founders working on sustainable and clean energy technologies. The fund will also make investments in companies that are empowering diverse talent and or creating economic opportunity for distressed or disadvantaged communities.

Amazon To Invest $150m In Vc Firms That Back Minority

Racial and gender biases play a hidden but big role when it comes to venture capital funding. According to data gathered by Crunchbase, since 2015 Black- and Latinx-founded startups have only made up 2.4 percent of the total venture capital distributed in the U.S. For women-founded companies, the same inequality also exists. On average, women-led companies raised $800,000 in their pre-seed rounds after nearly 50 meetings while male-led startups raised $770,000 in just 34 meetings.

Because of the disparity, e-commerce giant is launching a new initiative titled Amazon Catalytic Capital, which will invest $150 million into VC firms that back and fund startups from underrepresented communities.

Weve seen incredibly innovative ideas from underrepresented entrepreneurs from companies offering inclusive health services for women to startups helping companies mitigate climate impact for underserved communities and were convinced that an inclusive investment strategy leads to better returns and innovation. We want to ensure that these companies and their founders have the same access to capital as anyone else, Peter Krawiec, Amazons senior vice president of worldwide corporate development, said in a statement.

The $150 million will be distributed to over 10 venture funds, according to a statement. Amazon did not state how long the initiative will run, but the e-commerce giant has already distributed capital to four funds. Those funds include:

Amazon Is Investing $150 Million In Funds That Support Underrepresented Entrepreneurs

Amazon is launching Amazon Catalytic Capital, a new initiative to invest $150 million into venture capital funds, accelerators, incubators, and venture studios that provide funding to entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, primarily at the pre-seed/seed stage of venture capital funding. The company will invest in funds that focus on Black, Latino, Indigenous, women, and LGBTQIA+ founders. Amazon expects to support more than 10 funds and over 200 companies through the next year.

Weve seen incredibly innovative ideas from underrepresented entrepreneursfrom companies offering inclusive health services for women to startups helping companies mitigate climate impact for underserved communitiesand were convinced that an inclusive investment strategy leads to better returns and innovation. We want to ensure that these companies and their founders have the same access to capital as anyone else,” said Peter Krawiec, Amazons senior vice president of worldwide corporate development. We hope that our investment will be catalyticsparking a force-multiplying effect by inspiring others to invest in these companies, fostering inclusion and innovation, positively impacting communities, and creating generational wealth and financial return.”

Through this initiative, Amazon has invested in the following funds:

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Amazon Invests In Ev Charging Start

  • Amazon on Wednesday said it invested in three more start-ups as part of its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund, launched last June.
  • It has invested in 11 companies through the fund that are developing technologies across a wide range of sectors, from transportation and logistics to agriculture and food.

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said Wednesday it’s investing in three more start-ups as part of its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund.

The Climate Pledge Fund, , is designed to invest in technologies being developed to stop climate change and global warming. So far, Amazon has backed 11 companies across several industries, ranging from manufacturing and energy generation to food and agriculture.

One of the new recipients is Resilient Power, an Austin-based start-up that’s developing electric vehicle charging technology that has a smaller footprint and is quicker to install than comparable systems. Amazon said the start-up will help further the company’s own goals of deploying 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030. Amazon has contracted Rivian Automotive to produce those electric vehicles.

Amazon is also investing in CMC Machinery, which makes boxes designed to fit the exact dimensions of a product in each order, eliminating the need for single-use plastic padding.

A representative from Amazon declined to disclose how much it invested in each of the start-ups. Previously, the company has said the amounts range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

A Look At The Startups Jeff Bezos Has Invested In This Year

Amazon

While the majority of Jeff Bezos $150 billion wealth comes from his stake in Amazon.com Inc., his venture capital company, Bezos Expeditions, is also a contributing factor. In fact, since his retirement as the CEO of the worlds largest e-commerce company, Bezos has been focusing on acquiring startups across different industries, as his hunt for the next big bet continues. Bezos is seemingly dipping his toes in all types of water from space to real estate.

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Investors More Likely To Back Startups With Strong Environmental Sustainability Credentials

Seventy percent of early-stage investors are requesting more detail on the sustainability strategy of startups before they decide to invest, according to new independent research from Amazon. Eighty-three percent of the investors surveyed said they want to invest in more environmentally sustainable startups, and those companies with a strong sustainability profile will often command a 16% valuation premium, underlining the opportunity for entrepreneurs who are building more sustainable products and businesses.

An overwhelming majority believe startups perform better in the long-term if they have sustainability and purpose built into their business models from the outset. Those investors say the biggest challenge facing startups in the next year will be accessing and securing finance , followed closely by mitigating or lessening their environmental impact . More than half of early-stage investors surveyed in Europe said they have declined an investment opportunity in the last year due to sustainability concerns.

All Accelerator participants will complete a Climate Impact Assessment by Impact Forecast to help ensure their products are quantifiably more sustainable than what is currently available. This will also help them consider new ingredients, raw and recycled materials, and other innovations to develop and offer more sustainable products.

The first Amazon Launchpad Sustainability Accelerator startups are:

Wsj: Amazon Met With Startups About Investing Then Launched Competing Products

A recent report in the Wall Street Journal alleges that e-commerce giant Amazon met with small startups seeking investments to gain insight into their products before later launching its own competing products.

A recent report from the Wall Street Journal titled Amazon Met With Startups About Investing, Then Launched Competing Products, outlines how the e-commerce giant Amazon set up meetings with startup firms to discuss their products with the pretense of potentially investing in the companies, only later to launch competing products in similar markets.

The WSJ writes that when Amazons venture-capital fund invested in DefinedCrowd Corp. it gained access to the tech startups finances along with other confidential information. Four years later, Amazons cloud-computing unit launched an artificial intelligence product that does exactly what DefinedCrowd does, according to DefinedCrowd founder and CEO Daniela Braga.

The WSJ writes:

Amazon claims that the company does not use confidential information that companies share with it when building competing products. Many, however, believe that Amazon regularly takes advantage of startups in order to gain insight into their products.

Jeremy Levine, a partner at venture-capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, commented: They are using market forces in a really Machiavellian way. Its like they are not in any way, shape or form the proverbial wolf in sheeps clothing. They are a wolf in wolfs clothing.

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Amazon Pilots Seed Angel Investment Program For High

Amazon is piloting a new program designed to bring private venture capitalists and early-stage companies seeking seed and angel investments together.

The Amazon Web Services Pro-Rata Program is in its early stages and focuses on connecting investors and venture capitalists with startups and those who need early-stage funding and, therefore, may represent a higher degree of risk.

Amazon Launches $1bn Fund For Start

How To Invest In Amazon And Earn Money in 2022 (For Beginners)

The Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund has already invested in five wearables and robotics start-ups trying to improve employee experience.

Amazon has launched a $1bn venture investment innovation fund for start-ups building new technologies in the customer fulfilment, logistics and supply chain spaces.

Announced yesterday , the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund will focus on companies developing innovations that can increase delivery speeds in online shopping and improve the experience of employees working in warehouses and logistics.

We know there are companies out there that share our curiosity and excitement to invent, said Alex Ceballos Encarnacion, VP of worldwide corporate development at Amazon.

Whether our investment helps them grow or leads them to work with Amazon, or both, were excited to help advance these technologies as online shopping becomes even more important to people who are looking for more convenience and time savings.

He added that Amazon is looking to find innovative technologies in these inherently complex industries that can help improve employee experiences and safety while seamlessly coexisting with workforces.

A batch of five, mostly US-based, start-ups have already received investment through the innovation fund: Modjoul, Vimaan, Agility Robotics, BionicHive and Mantis Robotics. All five start-ups are developing technologies to help workers in warehouses.

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Food And Agriculture Investments

Food production requires a ton of land and fuel, food waste and spoilage result in methane emissions, and dairy and meat production releases in CO2 and methane emissions all of which are problems for Amazon if it plans to get further into food production.

“People forget that Amazon owns Whole Foods,” Peterson told CNBC. “We have a number of opportunities and new business models around Amazon Fresh, which is our physical stores, as well as our home delivery of foods.”

He added, “If you look at where we are going in the coming years with growth in grocery and growth in meals and food in general, it’s something we want to get ahead of.”

Amazon Primes New $1b Fund To Invest In Companies Working On Logistics And Supply Chain Issues

has a new $1 billion venture fund to invest in companies working in the customer fulfillment, logistics and supply chain sectors. Its new comes amid record venture investment into the shipping and logistics management space prompted by snarled global supply chains.

We see an opportunity to look beyond our own experience and empower companies that are developing emerging technologies in customer fulfillment operations, logistics, and the supply chain, Alex Ceballos Encarnacion, Amazons vice president of worldwide corporate development, wrote in a blog post. We know there are companies out there that share our curiosity and excitement to invent. Whether our investment helps them grow or leads them to work with Amazon, or both, were excited to help advance these technologies as online shopping becomes even more important to people who are looking for more convenience and time savings.

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Amazon Creates A Venture Capital Fund Championing Clean Energy

Speaking of footprints, clean energy and environmental initiatives are the focus of another new Amazon venture capital fund. The Climate Pledge Fund is investing $2 billion in environmentally-focused startups and companies in a variety of business sectors. These include transportation, energy, battery storage, as well as food and agriculture. These investments support Amazonâs plan to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Amazon described their billions in funding as an initial investment. The company stated the amount might grow over time. Industry pundits feel this new fund makes Amazon one of the top players in new energy investments. In 2019, the entire clean energy market received total investments of $10.5 billion. Ultimately, Amazon contributing its own dollars with The Climate Pledge Fund definitely boasts the potential to make a significant difference in this area.

Amazonâs recent venture fund investments reveal multiple larger strategies. Investing in expanding underserved markets makes sense from a growth standpoint. Improving the applications of technology also provides a similar opportunity. Finally, investing in clean energy initiatives ultimately benefits the entire planet.

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Amazon makes investment in prefabricated housing startup

Amazon said its new fund will focus on companies across all stages, from early-stage startups to more established companies. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is interested in companies in the broad operations, logistics and supply chain management space, which it said could include those working on robotics, AI, machine learning and autonomy.

So far, three of its initial investments from the new fund have gone to startups working on warehouse robotics:

  • Agility Robotics, the Albany, Oregon-based maker of a bi-pedal walking robot called Digit that works alongside warehouse workers.
  • BionicHIVE, an Israeli company working on autonomous robotics for warehouses.
  • Mantis Robotics, a San Francisco-based startup developing a tactile robotic arm that uses sensor technology to work alongside people in warehouses.

Amazon said its also invested in a wearable technology and an AI company:

  • Modjoul, a Greenville, South Carolina-based startup that makes wearable safety technology aimed at reducing workplace injuries.
  • Vimaan, a Santa Clara, California-based company thats developing computer vision and AI technology to improve inventory management.

The size of the checks it writes from the new fund will vary, Amazon said. It also didnt specify how many companies it expects to invest in.

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Enabling Acceleration Of Small And Medium Sized Businesses

  • Agri-tech sector: the Venture Fund aims to invest in Indian startups that are using technology to bring the best produce to consumers, make agri-inputs more accessible to farmers, provide tailored agronomy solutions to farmers to improve productivity, distribute credit and insurance to farmers or reduce food waste by building efficient farm to fork supply chains.
  • Healthcare sector: the Venture Fund aims to invest in Indian startups that are using technology for doctor assistance, telemedicine, e-diagnosis, AI powered treatment recommendations or digitizing operations of healthcare providers such as independent primary care clinics, diagnostic labs, pharmacy value chain or specialty doctor clinics for improving access to a wider patient base agnostic of physical geographic location.

How Amazon Got Started

The year was 94 and Bezos was working diligently on Wall Street. At 30 years old, he began to see the internet revolution take place, and made the decision to quit his job and start an internet company.

The wake up call was finding this startling statistic that web usage in the spring of 1994 was growing at 2,300 percent a year. You know, things just dont grow that fast. Its highly unusual, and that started me about thinking, What kind of business plan might make sense in the context of that growth?

After making a list of the top 20 products that he could potentially sell on the internet, he decided on books because of their low cost and universal demand. It turns out, it was just the beginning..

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Amazon Has Acquired Or Invested In More Companies Than You Think

When Jeff Bezos isn’t plotting how to blast himself into outer space or test-driving a 13-foot Transformer-esque robot, he’s hunting for the next startup that will bolster his arsenal. Over nearly two decades, the retailer has gobbled up or invested in at least 128 companies from Paris to Dubai.

What’s driven the Seattle behemoth to sink its tentacles into such a broad range of upstarts? “When Amazon decides it wants to win something and the market’s important to it, it will try to compete. If it can’t, it will ultimately buy the leader,” says Jeremy Levine, a partner at venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, a shareholder in Quidsi, which Amazon purchased in 2011 .

Common themes among the companies Amazon has brought into its inner circle: startups that adopted the retailer’s technology early on that help put it in direct orbit of Apple, Google, and Netflix or that vault it into a new geography or category, as it’s doing with its more recent Alexa Fund, which is funneling $100 million into artificial intelligence startups. While Amazon has had its share of winning bets like Zappos and Evi, if you ever get the chance to pitch Bezos, you might not want to remind him of LivingSocial.

While Amazon doesn’t disclose its specific investments and acquisitions and declined to confirm the following transactions with Inc., they have been reported by CB Insights. Inc. included the financial values when possible, using publicly available reports.

Long Duration Energy Storage

How to earn money from Amazon Associate, Amazon Affiliate marketing from Pakistan without investment

To use renewable energy like wind and solar on a large scale depends on battery technology to store energy when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.

Amazon is looking into long duration battery technology of various sizes and scales. Many long-duration batteries are very large and Peterson said Amazon will need batteries at sizes that are “appropriate” for the many use cases Amazon will need.

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