Jeff Bezos's physical AI startup Prometheus has closed a massive $12 billion funding round at a $41 billion valuation, marking one of the largest bets ever placed on the emerging physical AI sector. The company, co-founded by Bezos and Vik Bajaj — who previously co-founded Verily, Google's life sciences arm — announced the raise on June 11, with capital flowing in from Bezos himself along with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock. This represents Prometheus's second major fundraise; the startup initially launched late last year with a $6.2 billion round, according to CNBC.
Prometheus is developing what it calls an "artificial general engineer" — AI software designed to automate the design and manufacturing of complex physical systems, ranging from jet engines to pharmaceutical compounds. The company is keeping technical specifics tightly under wraps, but Bezos indicated that a substantial portion of the new capital will fund the startup's heavy compute requirements. The company currently employs 150 people spread across offices in San Francisco, London, and Zurich.
Bezos is pushing back against the prevailing narrative that AI will eliminate jobs at scale, instead framing the productivity boom as a path to what he calls "labor scarcity" — a future where demand for human workers outpaces supply. "Significant productivity in the economy is going to raise the standard of living," Bezos told CNBC. "People who today have two-earner households, they'll become one-earner households. Maybe some people who are working overtime will stop working overtime." That vision sits awkwardly alongside Amazon's recent track record: the company, where Bezos serves as executive chairman and remains the largest individual shareholder, employs more than 1.5 million people globally and has cut tens of thousands of positions under CEO Andy Jassy as it accelerates its own automation efforts.
At a $41 billion valuation, Prometheus ranks among the most richly valued AI startups in history, but it isn't operating in a vacuum. Venture capital has been flooding into physical AI throughout 2026, as investors and founders increasingly view the space as the next frontier beyond language models — though the article's ending notes that this boom comes with risks that remain to be seen.