Amazon has acquired many companies to become subsidiaries under its great vision. For those who do not know, Amazon is an American multinational technology company that focuses on eCommerce, cloud computing, digital streaming and artificial intelligence. Amazon was established by Jeff Bezos on the 5th of July 1994 in his garage in Bellevue, Washington. The company was originally an online marketplace for books but has now expanded into a marketplace for a multitude of products.
Here are some of the companies owned by Amazon
1. A9.com
A9.com is a company that places its focus on the research and establishment of innovative technology. The company develops search engines and search advertising technology. A9.com is located in Palo Alto CA with regional offices in Seattle, Bangalore, Belgium, Dublin, Lasi, Munich and Tokyo. The company was founded in 2003 by Udi Manber.
2. Amazon Maritime
Amazon maritime is a company under Amazon that operates as a non-vessel-owning common carrier. The company was licensed by the Federal Maritime Commission to run its services of managing shipments from China to the United States.
3. Annapurna Labs
The company, based in Israel is a microelectronics company. Annapurna labs were co-founded by Nafea Bshara, Bilic Hrvoje and Ronen Boneh. The company was acquired by Amazon to enhance the Amazon Web Services division in January 2015. Annapurna Labs was acquired for a sum of $350 million.
4. Audible.com
This is a company that produces spoken audiobooks for entertainment, information and educational purposes, and sells them on the Internet. Audible was acquired by Amazon for approximately $300 million in March 2008. The company’s subsidiary sells digital audiobooks, radio & TV programs, audio newspapers and magazines. Audible is also the largest producer of downloadable audiobooks.
5. Beijing Century Joyo Courier Services
Beijing Century Joyo courier services is a subsidiary of Amazon which applied for and got a freight forwarding license with the US maritime Commission.
6. Brilliance Audio
Acquired by Amazon in 2007, Brilliance Audio is an audiobook publisher founded by Michael Snodgrass in 1984 in the city of Grand Haven, Michigan. The company operates independently within Amazon. The company is credited with enhancing the audiobook market in the mid-1980s because it made audiobooks affordable.
7. Comixology
Comixology Is a cloud-based digital comics service with more than 200 million comics downloaded as of 2013. The company offers a variety of comics of up to 40,000 comic books and graphic novels across Windows, Android, iOS, Fire OS and web browsers. Amazon purchased Comixology in April 2014.
8. CreateSpace
This platform offers self-publishing services for standalone content creators, publishers, film studios and music labels founded in 2000 with the name: BookSurge, in South Carolina. CreateSpace was acquired by Amazon in 2005. By 2018, CreateSpace has published up to 1.4million books for about 15 million authors.
9. Eero
Eero Is an electronic company that specializes in mesh network Wi-Fi Devices. It was founded by Nick Weaver, Amos Schallich and Nate Hardison in 2014 to simplify and innovate a smart home. Amazon purchased Eero in 2019 for a sum of $97 million. The company now operates under Amazon and still advertises its commitment to privacy.
10. Goodreads
Founded in December 2006 and released in January 2007 by Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Khuri Chandler,. Goodreads is a social cataloguing website which allows users to freely search for databases of books, annotations and reviews. Users can also register books to generate library catalogues and reading lists. In December 2007, the platform had more than 650,000 members and over a million books. Amazon acquired Goodreads in March 2013.
11. Health Navigator
Amazon completed the acquisition of Health Navigation in November 2019. Health Navigator is a startup which aims at developing APIs for health services, online founded by emergency medicine doctor, David Thompson The startup is set to form part of Amazon care, which takes care of the company’s employees’ health issues.
12. Junglee
Junglee was acquired by Amazon in 1998, and its website junglee.com was launched in India in 2012 as a comparison-shopping website. The company started as a virtual database that was utilized in the extraction of information from the Internet and also the delivery to its enterprise applications. Over time, Junglee began to use its database to create a single window marketplace on the Internet, enabling every item from suppliers available for purchase. If you are getting value from this video, kindly smash the like button so others can find this video.
13. Kuiper systems
Kuiper systems LLC Is a company under the control of Amazon that deploys broadband satellite Internet constellations with low earth orbit satellites to provide fast, low-latency and affordable satellite-based Internet connectivity. It was set up in 2019. There are currently, more than 1,000 people working on the Kuiper program as they prepare to serve tens of millions of customers around the world.
14. Lab 126
Lab 126 is a hardware development company that develops integrated consumer electronics like the Amazon kindle, Fire Phone, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, etc. It was founded in 2004 by Gregg Zehr who is currently, the president of the company. In 2021, Lab126 developed and released a brand of domestic robots called Amazon Astro.
15. Ring
Ring is a home automation company established by Jamie Siminoff in 2013 as Doorbot. The company is popular for its Wi-Fi-powered smart doorbells, but it also manufactures devices like security cameras and so on. Amazon acquired Ring for a billion dollars in 2018.
16. Shelfari
Shelfari was a social cataloguing platform for books. The platform users created virtual bookshelves and titles which they owned or had gone through. Users could also rate, review, tag and discuss their books. Groups could be created by users for other members to join and discuss broadly books. Amazon purchased Shelfari in 2008, after investing one million dollars in the company. Amazon allowed the company to function independently before merging the company with Goodreads and closing it down in 2016 January.
17. Souq
Souq was the biggest eCommerce service in the Arab community. The company came into place in 2005 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and serviced multiple areas across the Middle East. Amazon bought Souq for 580 million dollars in March 2017 and rebranded the company to Amazon as an expansion plan to the Middle East.
18. Twitch
Twitch is a live streaming platform mostly used by gamers to live-stream their content. This service was initially established as a spinoff of Justin.tv. In August 2014 Amazon bought Twitch for the sum of $970 million. Twitch has started selling games on its platform since its acquisition by Amazon and also offers special features for Amazon prime subscribers.
19. Whole Foods Market
Whole Food Market is an Amazon-acquired American supermarket chain that indulges in the sale of foods without artificial preservations, flavours, sweeteners, hydrogenated fats and colours. Amazon purchased Whole Food Market for $13 billion in August 2017.
20. IMDb
It is an online database of information related to films, television series, Video games, home videos and streaming content. IMDb started as a fan-operated movie database, on the Usenet group. It was launched in October 1990. IMDb was acquired by Amazon in April 1998, for a sum of $55 million.
21. Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet was a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon but was originally an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. The company was created by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat in April 1996. Alexa Internet was discontinued in May 2022.
22. Shopbop
Shopbop is an online fashion apparel and accessories shop that opened in 1999. It was founded by Bob Lamey, Martha Graettinger and Ray Zemon in November 1999 in Madison Wisconsin. Shopbop was acquired by Amazon in 2006. At the time this deal was done, Shopbop was already selling 103 different lines of high-end clothing apparel.
23. Zappos
Zappos is an American online shoe and clothing retailer located in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. Founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmun and launched by the original domain name shoe site.com. Amazon acquired Zappos in an all-stock deal worth about $1.2 billion in July 2009.
24. iRobot
iRobot Corporation is an American tech company that designs and manufactures consumer robots. The company was formed in 1990 by three members of MIT’s artificial intelligence lab. Irobot produces a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners and other autonomous cleaning devices. In August 2022, Amazon announced its interest to acquire iRobot in a deal worth $1.7 billion. At the time of this recording, the deal is subjected to approval from the FTC.