Amazon has announced it is launching a $1bn venture investment programme, which it says will support innovation in customer fulfilment, logistics and the supply chain.
The Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund (AIIF) will focus on new technologies that will increase delivery speed and further improve the experience of employees working in the warehousing and logistics fields.
To date, the programme has made investments in various manufacturers, including Agility Robotics, Bionic Hive, Mantis Robotics, Modjoul and Vimaan.
“These industries are inherently complex,” said Alex Ceballos, Encarnacion, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide corporate development. “With our scale, Amazon is committed to investing in companies that will ignite innovation in emerging technologies that can help improve employee experiences and safety while seamlessly coexisting with workforces across the supply chain, logistics and other industries.”
Amazon said it has a history of investing in technologies to support its operations, with past improvements including robotic arms that perform repetitive tasks and new products in autonomous movement that can help transport larger items.
“Even as we have continually improved our operations to better the employee experience and enhanced safety through the development of new workstations with better ergonomics, we hope this fund opens the door for more collaboration,” Ceballos continued.
The investment programme comes after the e-commerce giant launched a $2bn fund to invest in climate technologies in 2020.
