Class A Dig: Amazon–Covariant was talent + non-exclusive licence — not a company acquisition

Acquisition summary (talent vs company ACQ): In Aug/Sep 2024 Amazon hired Covariant co-founders Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen and Rocky Duan plus ~25% of staff, and took a non-exclusive licence to Covariant’s robotic foundation models. Amazon’s own announcement and TechCrunch confirm Covariant continued as an independent company under CEO Ted Stinson (ex-COO) and co-founder Tianhao Zhang, serving existing customers. No equity purchase / company sale closed — same reverse-acqui-hire pattern as Amazon–Adept and Microsoft–Inflection.

Dealroom Dig: Deleted the false Sep 2024 Amazon ACQUISITION round (id 976092; empty amount/val) that incorrectly marked Covariant as company-acquired. Prior VC rounds (Series C/B/A/Seed etc.) retained. Entity status reset to operational .

Primary: Amazon announcement; TechCrunch; GeekWire. Media ~$380–400M estimates exist but were never encoded as round amount — do not invent.

Y.W. — Class A Pass A6 (2026-09-20)