Here Are The Startups Jeff Bezos Invested In Last Year The billionaire Amazon founder put early money into Airbnb and Uber. Now he’s placing bets on these AI robotics companies. Before Marko Bjelonic, cofounder and CEO of AI robotics company Swiss-Mile, met with billionaire Jeff Bezos last April, he sent Bezos his version of an Amazon 6-Pager to pitch his company, hoping it would improve his odds in a video call he expected to feel rushed—but wasn’t. (The 6-Pager is the now-famous document that Bezos required Amazon executives to circulate before strategic meetings in lieu of PowerPoint slides and is known as a key element of Amazon’s culture.) “I was very surprised by how patient he was and how relaxed,” Bjelonic says. The call was scheduled for 30 minutes, but ended up being an hour long. “It felt like a conversation.” That call led Bezos to co-lead a $22 million funding round in Zurich-based Swiss-Mile in August. The company is developing AI-powered robots that look a bit like wiry, headless dogs with wheels for feet and, later this year, can hopefully deliver items from point to point. It’s currently testing early versions on the streets of Zurich. Swiss-Mile is one of at least nine companies that got investments from the world’s second richest person in 2024; seven of them are artificial intelligence startups, according to media reports, PitchBook and Preqin data and Forbes research. A representative for Bezos wouldn’t comment. Four of the startups, including Figure AI and Swiss-Mile, are specifically working on AI-powered robotics—a vertical he had not publicly focused on as a venture investor before last year. While Bezos wouldn’t comment on his investment strategy, billionaire entrepreneurs who typically dip into angel investing are seeing changes coming. In this case, Bezos may think AI-powered robotics is on the cusp of a big commercial breakthrough. “They want to be on the forefront of investing into the type of technology that can be beneficial for their industry,” says Kjartan Rist, founding partner at Concentric, a venture firm that only has family offices as limited partners. “They've seen the waves that have come. So they’re very keen on being part of the next wave.” For Bezos, the last couple of “waves” in his primary industry—ecommerce—were likely real estate for distribution centers and robotics, and the next wave is autonomous robotics, Rist added. Bezos isn’t new to robotics; in 2007 he made an early bet on Rethink Robotics, a startup that helped robots automate manufacturing. During Bezos’ tenure as CEO of Amazon, the company purchased several robotics companies, including Kiva Systems in 2012 and Canvas Technology in 2019. But Bezos has never publicly invested in so many robotics startups in a year, and autonomous robots, which can operate without direct human supervision, are new. Two of the four AI robot companies (Figure AI and Physical Intelligence) didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Swiss-Mile’s Bjelonic and Skild AI cofounder and CEO Deepak Pathak are of course bullish, believing it’s a breakthrough moment for AI-powered robotics: “As people get interested about building artificial general intelligence, … robotics is the way to go to AGI,” Pathak says. “This is the next big frontier for AI.” Bjelonic likens it more to the invention of the iPhone, saying that all the requisite technologies are coming together to make autonomous robots possible—AI advances so the robots can be smarter, and cheaper hardware so more people can build them.
here-are-the-startups-jeff-bezos-invested-in-last-year-the-billionaire-amazon-founder-put-early-money-into-airbnb-and-uber-now-hes-placing-bets-on-these-ai-robotics-companies-before-marko-b

Here Are The Startups Jeff Bezos Invested In Last Year

The billionaire Amazon founder put early money into Airbnb and Uber. Now he’s placing bets on these AI robotics companies.

Before Marko Bjelonic, cofounder and CEO of AI robotics company Swiss-Mile, met with billionaire Jeff Bezos last April, he sent Bezos his version of an Amazon 6-Pager to pitch his company, hoping it would improve his odds in a video call he expected to feel rushed—but wasn’t. (The 6-Pager is the now-famous document that Bezos required Amazon executives to circulate before strategic meetings in lieu of PowerPoint slides and is known as a key element of Amazon’s culture.) “I was very surprised by how patient he was and how relaxed,” Bjelonic says. The call was scheduled for 30 minutes, but ended up being an hour long. “It felt like a conversation.”

That call led Bezos to co-lead a $22 million funding round in Zurich-based Swiss-Mile in August. The company is developing AI-powered robots that look a bit like wiry, headless dogs with wheels for feet and, later this year, can hopefully deliver items from point to point. It’s currently testing early versions on the streets of Zurich.

Swiss-Mile is one of at least nine companies that got investments from the world’s second richest person in 2024; seven of them are artificial intelligence startups, according to media reports, PitchBook and Preqin data and Forbes research. A representative for Bezos wouldn’t comment. Four of the startups, including Figure AI and Swiss-Mile, are specifically working on AI-powered robotics—a vertical he had not publicly focused on as a venture investor before last year.

While Bezos wouldn’t comment on his investment strategy, billionaire entrepreneurs who typically dip into angel investing are seeing changes coming. In this case, Bezos may think AI-powered robotics is on the cusp of a big commercial breakthrough. “They want to be on the forefront of investing into the type of technology that can be beneficial for their industry,” says Kjartan Rist, founding partner at Concentric, a venture firm that only has family offices as limited partners. “They've seen the waves that have come. So they’re very keen on being part of the next wave.”

For Bezos, the last couple of “waves” in his primary industry—ecommerce—were likely real estate for distribution centers and robotics, and the next wave is autonomous robotics, Rist added.

Bezos isn’t new to robotics; in 2007 he made an early bet on Rethink Robotics, a startup that helped robots automate manufacturing. During Bezos’ tenure as CEO of Amazon, the company purchased several robotics companies, including Kiva Systems in 2012 and Canvas Technology in 2019. But Bezos has never publicly invested in so many robotics startups in a year, and autonomous robots, which can operate without direct human supervision, are new.

Two of the four AI robot companies (Figure AI and Physical Intelligence) didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Swiss-Mile’s Bjelonic and Skild AI cofounder and CEO Deepak Pathak are of course bullish, believing it’s a breakthrough moment for AI-powered robotics: “As people get interested about building artificial general intelligence, … robotics is the way to go to AGI,” Pathak says. “This is the next big frontier for AI.”

Bjelonic likens it more to the invention of the iPhone, saying that all the requisite technologies are coming together to make autonomous robots possible—AI advances so the robots can be smarter, and cheaper hardware so more people can build them.