Prometheus, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup led by Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, has secured a massive funding round, valuing the company at $41 billion. The mega venture firmly establishes the billionaire as a dominant force in the global AI race.
The company raised $12 billion from a heavyweight syndicate of investors, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, BlackRock Inc, and Bezos himself, a company spokesperson confirmed. Led by Bezos and Google veteran Vik Bajaj, the 150-employee startup develops advanced AI models to engineer and manufacture physical products for the computing and aerospace sectors. Most of the startup's staff are based in San Francisco, with some working in London and Zurich.
Since stepping down as Amazon CEO in 2021, Bezos has prioritised his space venture, Blue Origin, alongside cutting-edge AI investments like Physical Intelligence and Generalist AI. Concurrently, Prometheus is seeking tens of billions more for a holding company designed to acquire businesses positioned to benefit from its laboratory technologies.
In an unusual move for an AI startup, Prometheus had intentionally targeted non-Silicon Valley investors such as private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds that have deep exposure to physical industries such as manufacturing. The only Silicon Valley-type firms that the lab counts among its investors are DST Global and ARCH Venture Partners, reported Bloomberg.
The AI lab is contemplating its initial products, with plans to both sell technology that helps manufacturers design and build physical products and manufacture physical products itself.
The startup has already raised billions of dollars in funding, sourced in part from Bezos himself, and has attracted employees from leading AI labs like OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
Generalist AI valued at $2 billion
Meanwhile, Generalist AI, a cutting-edge robotics startup, has raised $400 million in its latest funding round. The capital will accelerate the development of advanced artificial intelligence models designed to help robots master increasingly complex physical tasks.
Led by Radical Ventures, the financing propels Generalist’s valuation to $2 billion. The round drew significant backing from venture firms 8VC, Union Square Ventures, and Hanabi Capital, alongside existing tech heavyweights Nvidia Corp and Bezos Expeditions. Prominent individual backers included Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin, and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li.
Launched in 2024 by Google DeepMind and Boston Dynamics veterans, the company uses its new GEN-1 model to revolutionise basic robotic learning.
“It starts to cross in a general way into commercial viability for very simple tasks,” said Pete Florence, Generalist’s co-founder and CEO.
Generalist has customers using its model but can’t name them publicly, Florence said.
The company is also focusing on giving robots increased dexterity and has posted videos of GEN-1 letting machines do things like tying zip ties and arranging potato chips.
