Bezos Launches AI Startup With $6.2B In Reported Funding

Jeff Bezos will reportedly serve as co-CEO of a new artificial intelligence startup, Project Prometheus, focused on applying the technology to physical tasks, according to an article in The New York Times citing anonymous sources.

Project Prometheus is reportedly launching with $6.2 billion in funding, partly from Bezos. The startup’s other co-CEO is Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who most recently served as CEO and co-founder of biotech startup Foresite Labs.

Bajaj is also known for his work at Google’s X, the company’s lab dedicated to pursuing moonshot projects. Additionally, he served as co-founder of Alphabet precision health tech startup Verily.

Bezos, who stepped down from his longtime role as Amazon CEO in 2021, has long been active in funding and scaling startups. His best-known venture investment vehicle, Bezos Expeditions, has participated in at least 115 known funding rounds since the mid-2000s, per Crunchbase data.

The Amazon founder is also famously associated with spacetech ambitions, most prominently through spaceflight startup Blue Origin. To date, the company says it has flown 80 individuals into space.

Project Prometheus, meanwhile, will reportedly be focusing on AI that will help in engineering and manufacturing in multiple fields, including computers, aerospace and automobiles, per the article. Its work could potentially provide technology that Blue Origin could use to further its goals for expanding spaceflight.

The company has already hired a team of close to 100 employees, according to the article,  including researchers affiliated with OpenAI, Meta’s AI efforts, and other prominent AI labs.

Illustration: Dom Guzman