Bezos Expeditions has invested in a technology startup from Indonesia
Bezos Expeditions has invested $87 million in Indonesia-based startup Ula. The deal is the first in the e-commerce sector that Jeff Bezos’ firm has made in Southeast Asia.
Ula is an e-commerce startup that creates technology products for small retailers. For now, the company is focused on the domestic market, but it plans to expand outside the country in the future.
This isn’t the first funding round for Ula; it raised $10.5 million in 2020 and invested $20 million in early 2021.
Bezos Expeditions was founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2005. It is the family office for the founder of Internet giant Amazon and manages his personal investments. Bezos Expeditions invests in early-stage startups as well as in companies that have already gained a foothold in the market. When choosing investment options the firm does not limit itself to one sector, it chooses promising projects regardless of activity. Bezos Expeditions once became an investor in the social network Twitter, the news portal Business Insider, the accommodation rental service Airbnb, the taxi-calling app Uber, and other successful startups.
In addition to commercial companies, Bezos Expeditions is involved in charitable activities. For example, the company has invested in an innovation complex at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. It also funds the Center for Neural Circuits at the Institute for Neurobiology at Princeton. In 2013, Bezos Expeditions gave money to raise two Rocketdyne F-1 engines that belonged to the first stage of the Apollo 11 spacecraft from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Now these parts of the 1969 mission are in a museum in Seattle.
In addition, Bezos’ investment company took part in the “Long Time Clock” project. They are mechanical clocks designed to last 10,000 years. The 2-meter prototype is on display in a museum in London, and the Amazon founder decided to build his own full-size version in his plot in Texas. The project is valued at $42 million.
Jeff Bezos’s assets, in addition to Amazon and Bezos Expeditions, include another large-scale business, Blue Origin. The aerospace company is engaged in developments in the segment of extraterrestrial flights. For this purpose, the designers are creating a new type of spacecraft, which will make near-orbital flights accessible. Similar to competitors like Elon Musk and Richard Branson, Bezos wants to make tourist trips into space, and each of them creates his own ship for this purpose.
