Bezos' Current Investment Focus

Jeff Bezos, the world's third-richest person, has a diverse investment portfolio. His major investments are made through Amazon, Nash Holdings, and Bezos Expeditions, his venture capital firm. Bezos has invested in biotech companies seeking to cure cancer, agriculture tech companies aiming to solve world hunger, finance tech companies empowering underserved communities, and educational tech companies. He has also funded charitable projects through the Bezos Family Foundation. Some of his notable investments include Google, Twitter, Uber, Airbnb, and Business Insider. In addition to his holdings in more traditional investments, such as real estate, Bezos has also invested in space exploration through his company Blue Origin.

Biotech startups

Jeff Bezos has a long history of investing in biotech startups. One of the most notable examples is his investment in Altos Labs, a biotech startup focused on "cellular rejuvenation programming" or "reprogramming technology". Altos Labs aims to develop technology to reprogram human cells, with the ultimate goal of reversing the aging process and prolonging life. The company was founded in 2021 and has received significant funding, with investors including Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner.

Altos Labs has attracted top talent, including Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka, who joins as an unpaid senior scientist and will chair the company's scientific advisory board. Yamanaka is known for his research on cell "reprogramming", a process that involves adding proteins to a cell to instruct it to revert to a stem-cell-like state. Another prominent scientist joining Altos Labs is Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist who has gained notoriety for his research on human and monkey embryos.

In addition to Altos Labs, Jeff Bezos has made other investments in the biotech space. Through his investment firm, Bezos Expeditions, he has invested in biotech companies such as Unity Biotechnology (a company developing technology to delay aging at the cellular level), Nautilus Biotechnology, Sana Biotechnology, Denali Therapeutics, and Juno Therapeutics. Bezos has also shown interest in healthcare companies focusing on cancer detection and treatment, such as Grail and Juno Therapeutics.

Jeff Bezos's investments in biotech startups demonstrate his interest in longevity research and his commitment to using his wealth to support innovative companies working on potentially groundbreaking technologies in the healthcare and biotech industries.

Cancer-curing companies

Jeff Bezos has made a wide variety of investments through Amazon, his venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions, Nash Holdings LLC, the Bezos Family Foundation, and his own personal fortune. Many of these investments are in companies that aim to save the world, including biotech companies seeking to cure cancer.

Bezos Expeditions has invested in several cancer-curing companies. In 2016, the firm invested $100 million in Grail, a healthcare company focusing on detecting cancer in its early stages. Grail raised over $2 billion in funding and announced an IPO in September 2020, but just a week later, Illumina announced it would buy the company for $8 billion.

Bezos Expeditions also invested in Juno Therapeutics, a company that develops immunotherapies for cancer treatment. In April 2014, the firm invested $56 million in Juno Therapeutics, followed by $134 million in August 2014. In January 2018, pharmaceutical company Celgene acquired Juno Therapeutics for $9 billion.

In addition to these direct investments in cancer-curing companies, Jeff Bezos has also invested in Unity Biotechnology, a startup developing technology to delay aging at the cellular level. Aging is a significant factor in cancer development, and by targeting the aging process, Unity Biotechnology's work may also contribute to cancer prevention or treatment.

Furthermore, Bezos has invested in Altos Labs, a biotech startup working on technology to rejuvenate cells and potentially prolong life. While Altos Labs' primary focus is on anti-aging and longevity, their research has broader implications for treating age-related diseases, including cancer.

Through his investments in these cancer-curing companies, Jeff Bezos is not only seeking to generate financial returns but also to positively impact the world by supporting innovative healthcare solutions.

Agriculture tech

Jeff Bezos has made a wide variety of investments through Amazon, his venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions, Nash Holdings LLC, the Bezos Family Foundation, and his own personal fortune. One of his investments is in agriculture tech companies aiming to solve world hunger.

In July 2017, Bezos Expeditions made a $200 million investment in Plenty, an agriculture technology company that develops plant sciences for crops to flourish in a pesticide and GMO-free environment. Plenty's vertical farms grow vegetables indoors, using only 1% of the water used in traditional agriculture and producing crop yields up to 350 times greater than traditional methods.

Bezos has also invested in sustainable agriculture through the Bezos Earth Fund, a multi-billion-dollar pledge to fight the impact of climate change. The fund has provided $35 million in new grants for sustainable food and climate reporting. $9.9 million of this was granted to Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for a virtual fencing project, which involves equipping livestock with devices that keep them within designated grazing areas, reducing the need to chop down forests to build physical fenced fields. The Earth Fund also granted $5.5 million to the Good Food Institute, which funds research on plant-based meat alternatives.

Real estate

Jeff Bezos has made some notable investments in real estate. In 2023, he made headlines for purchasing multiple mansions in Florida, including two properties on the exclusive Billionaire Bunker island, Indian Creek Island, for $68 million and $79 million. Bezos plans to raze these two homes and build a custom megamansion in their place. In April 2024, he purchased a third property on Indian Creek Island for $90 million, bringing the total value of his properties on the island to $177 million.

In addition to his Florida properties, Bezos has a substantial number of properties across the United States. He owns a compound in Seattle, which includes two homes measuring 20,600 square feet and 8,300 square feet, respectively, situated on about 5.3 acres in the exclusive Medina neighbourhood. He also has several properties in his home state of Washington, a number of apartments in New York City, a few sprawling estates in California, and a ranch in Texas.

Bezos's real estate portfolio also includes several notable mansions. In 2020, he paid a record $165 million for David Geffen's historic Beverly Hills mansion, which includes a 13,600-square-foot Georgian-style main house, two guest houses, a nursery, a tennis court, a swimming pool, and a nine-hole golf course. He also owns a $78 million compound on La Perouse Bay in Maui, Hawaii, which includes a 4,500-square-foot main house and a 1,700-square-foot guest house.

In addition to his personal real estate investments, Bezos has also backed the real estate startup Arrived, which buys single-family homes and turns them into rental properties. Investors can purchase shares of these properties for as little as $100, allowing them to become landlords with a small investment. Arrived currently operates in several cities across the United States, including Nashville, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis, and has attracted nearly half a million retail investors.

Media

Jeff Bezos has an affinity for the technology sector and media and communication services that connect people. Here are some of his investments in the media space:

Twitter (now X Corp.)

Bezos invested in Twitter Inc. before its rebrand to X Corp.

Business Insider

Bezos has also invested in the popular business news website Business Insider.

Zocdoc

Zocdoc Inc. is a platform for connecting people, which Bezos has invested in.

Nextdoor

Bezos Expeditions followed super-investor David Sze with an investment in the private social media app Nextdoor during Series B funding in 2013.

EverFi

In April 2017, Bezos invested $190 million from his personal cash flow during a Series D funding round for EverFi, an educational technology company that focuses on financial education, social and emotional learning, and STEM and career readiness, among other offerings.

General Assembly

In 2011, Bezos invested about $4.5 million in General Assembly, which at the time was just a co-working space. GA has since grown into a global campus that fosters an elite professional community of individuals and companies through education and strategic career connections.

The Washington Post

In August 2013, Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million. Its audience and traffic exploded, surpassing The New York Times for the first time in October 2015 in terms of U.S. unique web viewers.

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