Bezos' AI startup Prometheus completes $12 billion financing, reaching a valuation of $41 billion.

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Jeff Bezos’ AI startup Prometheus has completed a massive round of financing and publicly disclosed its core business direction for the first time, marking the billionaire’s most significant new business bet since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO is now entering the public view.

Prometheus announced Thursday that it completed a $12 billion Series B funding round, raising its valuation to about $41 billion.

Bezos said the company wasn’t deliberately being secretive, but was focused on a goal that had never truly been accomplished before—building an AI toolset to assist engineers in designing and manufacturing physical products. He described it as a platform to accelerate the “invention cycle” and said the progress so far is “quite remarkable,” though it is too early to disclose specific details.

This funding will mainly be used to expand computing power. Bezos stated that a large amount of capital will go towards acquiring computing resources, because the work Prometheus is conducting is “extremely compute-intensive.” He also confirmed that Prometheus may collaborate with Amazon’s cloud business AWS in the future, saying “it’s easy to imagine Prometheus becoming an AWS customer for computing resources,” but the two companies will remain independent.

Focus on Physical World AI, Clarifying “Robot” Rumors

Since its founding in November last year with an initial $6.2 billion financing, Prometheus has rarely spoken publicly, leaving the market speculating about its business direction—including rumors that the company is developing robots. Bezos explicitly denied this in an interview. Bezos said:

“There’s some speculation out there, but we’re not intentionally keeping things secret, we’re just focused on the work. But when you raise so much money, people will naturally be curious.”

He said that the mission of Prometheus is “to provide AI for the physical economy,” with specific focuses on engineering design, manufacturing, and drug development. The company describes its product as a “very, very modern version” of computer-aided design software (CAD), but Bezos also emphasized that this description “oversimplifies” the complexity of the actual work.

Bezos’s co-CEO, Stanford University School of Medicine professor Vik Bajaj, previously co-founded Alphabet’s life sciences research institution Verily. Prometheus currently has offices in San Francisco, London, and Zurich, with a team of about 150 people—including talent from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and NVIDIA.

Bezos Personally Participates in Series B, Fully Shifts Focus to AI

Bezos revealed that he personally participated as an investor in this Series B round, and previously invested significant capital in the Series A round. Prometheus has not disclosed other investors’ specific information.

Regarding his time allocation, Bezos said Prometheus now occupies most of his energy:

“Prometheus takes up most of my time. I also spend a lot of time on Blue Origin and Amazon’s AI businesses. So the common thread in where I invest my time is primarily AI.”

Since stepping down as Amazon CEO and becoming executive chairman in 2021, Bezos has been involved in multiple fields. At Prometheus, he holds the position of co-CEO, marking the first time he’s become a CEO again after leaving Amazon.

AI Regulation and Employment: Bezos Calls for Moderate Rules, Rejects Pessimism

On AI regulation, Bezos expressed support for “reasonable” government regulation, but clearly opposed any measures that could stifle innovation. Using drug development and aviation industry regulatory frameworks as examples, he argued that regulation should focus on the application layer, not the underlying technology itself. Bezos said:

“You shouldn’t ban knives just because knives can be used for bad purposes. The solution isn’t to say, ‘Okay, no more data centers, no more knives.’ That’s not a wise regulatory approach.”

On employment concerns, Bezos refuted the view that AI will cause massive job losses, attributing it to “a few smart people getting everyone pessimistic, but those people are wrong.”

He believes AI will significantly boost productivity, thus raising people’s living standards, and predicts that in the future some dual-income households may choose to live on a single income. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2024, nearly 50% of married couples both work, and among families with children this ratio reaches two-thirds.

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