On Friday, Amazon announced a plan to acquire public grocery retailer Whole Foods for $13.7B, in what would be Amazon’s largest acquisition of all time by over 10x. Prior to the grocery chain acquisition, Amazon’s largest purchase was of e-commerce platform Zappos in 2009, for $1.2B; below that ranks its 2014 acquisition of gaming video platform Twitch for $970M.
While Amazon’s acquisitions have covered a range of areas, they have generally all been online or virtual businesses. For example, its other acquisitions in 2017 to date have been of UAE-based e-commerce marketplace Souq.com, productivity software Do.com, cloud-based design platform Thinkbox Software, and cybersecurity firm Harvest.ai. The Whole Foods deal is radically different, of course, in that it brings Amazon over 400 physical grocery stores — stores which can continue to sell products, while also potentially serving as warehousing outposts for last-mile delivery of online purchases of fast moving or perishable goods.
We used the CB Insights database to put together a chart of Amazon’s ten largest disclosed acquisition deals, topped by Whole Foods. See the list below.
| Company | Company Description | Date | Price | Select Prior Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole Foods Market (Pending) | Supermarket chain | June 2017 | $13.7B | Public |
| Zappos | E-commerce footwear and apparel marketplace | July 2009 | $1.2B | Accelerator Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Sequoia Capital |
| Twitch Interactive | Video platform and community for gamers | September 2014 | $970M | Alsop-Louie Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Associates, Felicis Ventures, Floodgate |
| Kiva Systems | Warehouse robotics maker | March 2012 | $775M | Bain Capital Ventures, Gold Hill Capital, Meakem Becker Venture Capital |
| Souq.com | Middle East-based e-commerce marketplace | March 2017 | $580M | Naspers, Tiger Global Management |
| Quidsi | E-commerce platform and parent of Diapers.com (baby care), Soap.com (household essentials) and BeautyBar.com (prestige beauty) | June 2011 | $500M | Accel Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners |
| Annapurna Labs | Software solutions for data centers | January 2015 | $370M | N/A |
| LOVEFiLM International | DVD rentals and movie downloads and streaming | January 2011 | $312M | Balderton Capital, Draper Esprit, Index Ventures, LocalGlobe, Octopus Ventures |
| Audible | Audio programs and entertainment platform | March 2008 | $300M | Public |
| AWS Elemental (formerly Elemental Technologies) | Video streaming technology | September 2015 | $296M | General Catalyst, Voyager Capital, Norwest Venture Partners |
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