Industrial AI startup Prometheus has raised $12 billion in a series B round, taking its valuation to $41 billion, according to Axios.
The funding was backed by major investors including JPMorgan, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, DST Global, Arch Venture Partners, and Bezos himself.
Founded by Bezos and former Google executive Vik Bajaj, Prometheus is focussed on bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into industrial operations and engineering. The company currently employs around 150 people.
The fundraise marks Bezos' return to a more hands-on operational role through a new AI venture. Prometheus doesn't have corporate ties to either Amazon or Blue Origin.
"It deserves a dedicated team that is obsessed with this one thing," Bezos told Axios. Even so, he said Blue Origin could become a customer, describing it as "a case study for a customer of Prometheus."
At the centre of the company's vision is what it calls an "artificial general engineer" — an AI system designed to help engineers develop and manufacture complex products. Prometheus believes AI can help speed up the creation of everything, from jet engines and medical devices, to skyscrapers and spacecraft.
"The cycle from dream, to manufacturing… to having it out in the world can be very long," Bezos told Axios.
Giving an example, Bezos said: “If you go to a jet engine manufacturer and say you want the exact same engine but with 10% more thrust, it could be a 10-year programme. Not because they're lazy or bad at their jobs, but because it's so complex. So what we're doing is building a set of tools that will empower engineers to compress that time and make that dream-build loop 10 times faster, or even more.”
Axios noted that Prometheus appears positioned as both a potential replacement for some engineering tasks and a tool to assist engineers. However, Bezos and Bajaj argued that, if successful, the technology would increase demand for engineers rather than reduce it.
