Bezos Expeditions

Exclusive: Workday Picks Its Bankers for a Fall 2012 IPO

Arik Hesseldahl in News on May 10 at 11:04 am PT

Having started a search for bankers in December, Workday has settled on four who will take it through the IPO process, starting with an S-1 filing expected in mid-July.

Workday Is Looking for Bankers to Help It Go IPO in 2012

Arik Hesseldahl in News on December 23, 2011 at 4:22 am PT

The wait begins for one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2012.

Exclusive: Aneel Bhusri’s Workday Raises $85 Million at a Whopping $2 Billion Valuation

Arik Hesseldahl in News on October 24, 2011 at 5:58 am PT

The cloud-based human resources software outfit is growing fast and eyeing an IPO next year. Among its new investors: T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity.

Exclusive: Wal-Mart Paid $300 Million-Plus for Kosmix

Kara Swisher in News on April 18, 2011 at 5:46 pm PT

According to sources close to the situation, retail giant Wal-mart paid just over $300 million in cash for Kosmix, an acquisition announced earlier today. That’s a big price for the six-year-old Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has built a social media platform that organizes content by topic and had raised $55 million from a large group of Silicon Valley venture firms.

Wal-Mart Acquires Kosmix to Move Into Social and Mobile

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on April 18, 2011 at 10:18 am PT

Wal-Mart is buying Kosmix, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that has built a social media platform that organizes content by topic.

Voices

Amazon, Dell Founders Help Fund Healthcare Startup

Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 28, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

A Seattle startup that provides primary health care for a flat monthly fee is getting some big-name financial backers from the technology industry: Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell. Qliance Medical Management Inc. says it has raised $6 million in new funding in a financing round led by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Amazon.com’s CEO; additional financing came from MSD Capital, Michael Dell’s investment firm.

Jeff Bezos, Spark Capital, Bet on Aviary, a Web-Based Would-Be Adobe

Peter Kafka in Media on October 25, 2009 at 9:00 pm PT

Last week, Jeff Bezos made $2 billion in one day, courtesy of a massive spike in Amazon shares. That gives him more money to plow into the likes of Aviary, a Long Island-based company that makes design software. The Amazon CEO has made a second investment in the company as part of a $7 million round led by Spark Capital.

When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled

Kara Swisher in News on November 24, 2008 at 12:45 am PT

About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering to acquire Twitter for $500 million of its stock, which also included a cash component. While rumors of Facebook’s interest were brought up in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 Summit a few weeks ago, some shot down the idea as silly. Quite incorrectly, as it turns out, since top execs at both Facebook and Twitter were right then at the tail end of discussions, which were initiated by the privately held Facebook in mid-October, about bringing the two together. Those talks, sources on both sides said, are now over. So why did the deal break down?