Bezos Expeditions invests in 37signals Jason 152 comments Latest by Movies

Today we have a very special announcement to make: Bezos Expeditions, a personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, has made a minority private equity investment in 37signals.

Here’s some background on the decision.

Over the past two and a half years we’ve accomplished a lot on our own. We’ve released 5 products (Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire, Tadalist, and Writeboard) which over 500,000 people have signed up for so far, wrote Getting Real which has sold nearly 20,000 copies in less than six months, changed the web development world by writing and open sourcing the Ruby on Rails framework, presented at conferences around the world, and more. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to do without outside help. But we think we can do even better with the right kind of help. And we’re picky.

Since we launched Basecamp we’ve been contacted by nearly 30 different VC firms. We’ve never been interested in the typical traditional VC deal. With a few exceptions, all the VCs could offer us was cash and connections. We’re fine on both of those fronts. We don’t need their money to run the business and our little black book is full. We’re looking for something else.

What we’ve been looking for is the wisdom of a very special entrepreneur who’s been through what we’re going through. Someone who sees things a little differently and makes us feel right at home. Someone with a long term outlook, not a build-to-flip mentality. We found a perfect match in Jeff. Jeff is our kinda guy.

It will be great learning from Jeff as we build 37signals into one the great companies of the next 20 years. Daniel Burnham, the great visionary architect of Chicago, said, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized.” We agree. We hope this boost of ambition, and Jeff’s personal vote of confidence, will help us achieve our big plans.

So here we go.