Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund has hired John Wong, previously head of corporate VC at Honeywell, iRobot and Rockwell Automation.

E-commerce and cloud computing group Amazon has recruited experienced corporate venturer John Wong as the latest investor at its Industrial Innovation Fund.
Amazon launched the fund in 2022 with $1bn in capital to explore and invest in customer fulfilment, logistics and supply chain technology. Wong will be working under Franziska Bossart, who heads the unit.
Wong said while announcing the move this week that he will focus on those areas as well as robotics, warehouse automation, transportation and last-mile delivery.
Amazon hired Wong after roughly 18 months heading corporate venture capital for industrial automation technology provider Rockwell Automation, where his investments included edge orchestration startup Zededa, IoT sensor developer Everactive and manufacturing training platform Ready Robotics, taking board observer positions at all three.
Wong began his career in consultancy before taking on asset management and private equity roles at General Electric. A stint at private equity firm Exigen Capital led to SoftBank hiring him as director of strategy and business development, which was followed by a similar role back at GE.
The first corporate VC role for Wong came in 2018 as director of corporate development for mobile and video technology provider InterDigital, before industrial technology and appliance producer Honeywell brought him in as director of ventures.
Three years at Honeywell Ventures was then followed by over a year as head of iRobot Ventures, the strategic investment arm of AI robotics producer iRobot.