Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, the company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories, referred to as "The Everything Store". Today, Amazon is considered one of the Big Five American technology companies, the other four being Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.
Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists. Khosla was named the top venture capitalist on the Forbes Midas List in 2001 and has been listed multiple times since that time. As of August 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$7.2 billion.
SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan which focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a multitude of markets and industries ranging from the internet to automation. With over $100 billion in capital at its onset, SoftBank's Vision Fund is the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund. Fund investors included sovereign wealth funds from countries in the Middle East.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba, is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services via Chinese and global marketplaces, as well as local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics, and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse portfolio of companies around the world in numerous business sectors.
Kion Group AG is a German multinational manufacturer of materials handling equipment, with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. Its principal products are intralogistics, warehouse automation equipment, and industrial (forklift) trucks. Kion Group was founded in 2006 by the demerger of Linde's materials handling equipment operations. It is the world's second-largest manufacturer of forklifts measured by revenues.
Amazon Robotics LLC, formerly Kiva Systems, is a Massachusetts-based company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfillment systems. It is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Its automated storage and retrieval systems have been used in the past by companies including The Gap, Walgreens, Staples, Gilt Groupe, Office Depot, Crate & Barrel, Amazon and Saks 5th Avenue. Employees of Erstwhile Kiva now only work in Amazon warehouses.
Dematic is an American supplier of materials handling systems, software and services. With a growth rate of 21.2% in 2021 Dematic was listed as the world's second-largest materials handling systems supplier with a revenue of 3.2 billion USD. The company employs over 10,000 people and has engineering centres and manufacturing facilities in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Belgium, China, Italy, Spain, France, Lithuania and Czech Republic. Its customer base includes small, medium and large companies in several other countries across six continents.
JD.com, Inc., also known as Jingdong, formerly called 360buy, is a Chinese e-commerce company headquartered in Beijing. It is one of the two massive B2C online retailers in China by transaction volume and revenue, and is a major competitor to Alibaba-run Tmall. With revenues more than US152.8 billion in 2023, JD.com is China’s largest retailer by revenue, and ranks 52 on Fortune Global 500. JD.com’s portfolio spans across retail, technology, logistics, health care, industrials, property management, private label, insurance, and international business.
Prologis, Inc. is a real estate investment trust headquartered in San Francisco, California that invests in logistics facilities. The company was formed through the merger of AMB Property Corporation and Prologis in June 2011, which made Prologis the largest industrial real estate company in the world. As of December 2022, the company owned 5,495 buildings comprising about 1.2 billion square feet in 19 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. According to The Economist, its business strategy is focused on warehouses that are located close to huge urban areas where land is scarce. It serves about 6,600 tenants. Prologis began to expand its non-real estate business, Essentials, in 2022, offering customers solar power, racking systems, forklifts, generators, EV charging infrastructure, and other logistics tech equipment for purchase.
Argo AI LLC was an autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was co-founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, veterans of the Google and Uber automated driving programs. Argo AI was an independent company that built software, hardware, maps, and cloud-support infrastructure to power self-driving vehicles. Argo was mostly backed by Ford Motor Co. (2017) and the Volkswagen Group (2020). At its peak, the company was valued at $7 billion.
Super Micro Computer, Inc., dba Supermicro, is an American information technology company based in San Jose, California. The company is one of the largest producers of high-performance and high-efficiency servers, while also providing server management software, and storage systems for various markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G, and edge computing. Supermicro was founded on November 1, 1993, and has manufacturing operations in Silicon Valley, the Netherlands, and in Taiwan at its Science and Technology Park.
SenseTime is a partly state-owned publicly traded artificial intelligence company headquartered in Hong Kong. The company develops technologies including facial recognition, image recognition, object detection, optical character recognition, medical image analysis, video analysis, autonomous driving, and remote sensing. Since 2019, SenseTime has been repeatedly sanctioned by the U.S. government due to allegations that its facial recognition technology has been deployed in the surveillance and internment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities. SenseTime denies the allegations.
Amazon is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital streaming. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is one of the world's most valuable brands.
Lineage, Inc. is the world's largest temperature-controlled warehouse real estate investment trust (REIT), owned by Bay Grove, LLC. Entering international markets in 2017, Lineage grew into the world's largest refrigerated warehousing company with a capacity exceeding 3 billion cubic feet and acquiring more than 100 companies through the end of 2023. Lineage operates over 450 facilities across 18 countries, with approximately 26,000 team members globally in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Bruce Welty is an American entrepreneur and businessman who designs and builds warehouse management systems (wms) and e-commerce order fulfillment systems. Welty is a founder of AllPoints Systems, Inc., Quiet Logistics, Inc., and Locus Robotics Corporation. He is the former chairman of the board for Locus and former chief executive officer and chairman of the board for Quiet Logistics. Mr. Welty holds 11 patents. His media appearances include 60 Minutes, CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg News.
Zoox, Inc. is an American technology company subsidiary of Amazon developing autonomous vehicles that provide mobility as a service. It is headquartered in Foster City, California and has offices of operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington. Zoox sits in the Amazon Devices & Services organization alongside other Amazon units like Amazon Lab126, Amazon Alexa, and Kuiper Systems.
Berkshire Grey, Inc. is an American technology company based in Bedford Massachusetts that develops integrated artificial intelligence (“AI") and robotic solutions for e-commerce, retail replenishment, and logistics. The company's systems automate pick, pack and sort operations.
GLP is a global owner, developer and operator of logistics real estate, digital infrastructure and renewable energy. GLP also invests in and incubates new businesses that improve efficiency and drive growth across it's platforms. The company's warehouses serve logistics service providers, manufacturers, retailers and e-commerce companies such as Amazon and JD.com.
Plus is an American autonomous driving technology company based in Santa Clara, California. The company develops Level 4 autonomous driving technology for commercial freight trucks. In 2019, the company completed the first cross-country driverless freight delivery in the U.S. The company's self-driving system began to be used commercially in 2021.
Agility Robotics, Inc. is a privately held American humanoid robotics and engineering company. The company was founded in 2015 as a spin-off from Oregon State University, and currently provides automation solutions, based around it's humanoid robot Digit.
