Jeff Bezos’s Investments Point to Some Good Bets

Bezos continues to put his money to work despite being the world’s richest person, a title he contests with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Bezos’s wealth stems from Amazon, which he started as an online bookstore and has built into an e-commerce and cloud computing powerhouse valued at more than $1.6 trillion. What's Bezos investing in now, and what can you learn from his investments?

Bezos has invested in numerous businesses since starting Amazon. A look at the billionaire’s investments reveals a diversified portfolio spanning technology, healthcare, media, and climate. He also invests heavily in charities—he set up The Day One Fund in 2018 and pledged $2 billion toward supporting homeless people.

Bezos has invested in various startups and projects that have gone on to become large publicly traded companies. Some of his most notable investments include Uber Technologies, Airbnb, Beacon, The Bezos Earth Fund, The Washington Post, and Blue Origin.

In 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a space travel company that competes with Elon Musk-led SpaceX. And in 2011, the Amazon founder invested $37 million in ride-hailing company Uber and participated in a funding round that raised $112 million for Airbnb. He reaped the rewards of those investments when Uber and Airbnb went public. The Amazon boss was also an early investor in Google.

In 2013, the billionaire bought The Washington Post for $250 million, and in 2020, Bezos invested in Beacon, a British startup that provides digital freight logistics and supply chain financing services. Led by former Uber and Amazon executives, Beacon is disrupting the $1 trillion global freight forwarding industry. That year, the billionaire also launched the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund to invest in climate programs. 

Bezos has also invested through Bezos Expeditions, which oversees his venture capital investments. The biggest of those investments are the following: 

• Plenty, an agriculture technology startup that aims to increase food production to tackle global hunger. It received a $200 million investment from Bezos Expeditions in 2017. 

• Lookout, a cybersecurity company that serves both the enterprise and consumer markets. It received an investment of $150 million from Bezos Expeditions in 2014. 
• Grail, a biotech startup focused on fighting cancer by developing technology to detect the disease early. It received a $100 million investment from Bezos Expeditions in 2016.

Additionally, Bezos has invested in dozens of startups through Amazon. These include electrical vehicle company Rivian and LivingSocial, a daily deal platform that competes with Groupon. Amazon has an agreement to buy 100,000 electric vans from Rivian as part of its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

The $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund stands out as the billionaire’s largest personal investment. And through Amazon, the $13.7 billion acquisition of organic foods retailer Whole Foods, the Rivian investment, and the stake in LivingSocial are some of his largest deals.