37signals Gets Some of That Bezos Money

By Chris Karr in Miscellaneous on Jul 21, 2006 1:31PM

Wow, it's been an interesting week for local Internet startups. Earlier, FeedBurner completed its first acquisition, and we heard last night that 37signals picked up some investment cash from Jeff Bezos. (Bezos is the guy who founded and runs Amazon; 37signals is a local company offering project management and organization tools over the web.)

What's interesting about this investment is that 37signals claims that they didn't need the cash:

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.

Given that they didn't want connections or cash, we're really curious why Bezos' investment firm, Bezos Expeditions, pumped some cash into the company. Did they want his experience with Amazon? Is Bezos paying 37signals to use Amazon's S3 service? Or what? We really have no idea, but wouldn't be surprised to see the 37signals posse out and about in the city in swanky new Italian cars with license plates reading "RBY4EVR" or out on the lake with the company yacht named "Keeping It Real".

Image Credit: daveparker