The Quiet AI Play Backed by Bezos, NVIDIA, and a Wall of Enterprise Contracts

You know when you’re watching TV and suddenly Shaq shows up in a commercial for printer ink, car insurance, or Papa John’s SHAQaroni pizza? Doesn’t matter what it is… you pay attention. That’s the whole game. Throw a celebrity at it, and suddenly their biggest fans are googling laser printers at midnight. Well, Jeff Bezos just did the Shaq move… only instead of selling pizza, he’s backing an AI firm that could rake in $1 billion in revenue by next year.

Let me introduce you to Nebius Group… a European-born AI infrastructure company that just got the Bezos stamp of approval. Shares are up over 10% since Wednesday, all thanks to a $72 million investment into its red-hot AI subsidiary, Toloka, led by Bezos Expeditions (his private investment arm) and Shopify CTO Mikhail Parakhin. It’s not surprising that this was an endorsement that Wall Street heard loud and clear.

So what does Toloka actually do? In short, they train and evaluate AI models using real human feedback. Their tech helps prevent your chatbot from going rogue, while also powering next-gen AI applications for companies like Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and now, it seems, Shopify too.

With revenue up 140% year-over-year, Toloka’s no longer a backend nerd lab… it’s becoming a front-row player in the AI arms race. And guess who’s now chairman of its brand-new board? That’s right: Shopify’s CTO, Parakhin, who’s hopping on board to help steer Toloka into its next phase of growth. Founder Olga Megorskaya stays on as CEO and also joins the board.

Now, Nebius still owns the majority of Toloka, so all this upside (and buzz) directly juices its own valuation. And surprisingly, this funding isn’t at all about survival, it’s about acceleration. Management says they’re gunning for a $750M to $1B run rate by December 2025, and this deal gets them a whole lot closer.

That’s definitely not a pipe dream, either. As of March, they were already pacing $220M in annualized revenue… with a chunky backlog of enterprise contracts still in the pipeline. Nebius is building a full-stack AI infrastructure empire. Think 30,000+ GPUs powering specialized cloud services across Europe and North America. Data centers in places like Finland, France, and Kansas City. 

Oh… and let’s not forget the company raised $700M in December from absolute whales like NVIDIA, Accel, and Orbis. Not bad for a company that only went public last year.

It’s obvious that Jeff Bezos is pushing the envelope when it comes to AI… and Nebius is the lucky product he painted his face on. With Toloka scaling, AI infrastructure booming, and institutional investors piling in, this might be the next underdog story to watch in 2025.

Because while other AI plays are busy burning cash and selling hype, Nebius is stacking GPUs and signing contracts. And now, with Bezos in their corner they might be the leader in their field of AI development. 

If you're looking for more AI exposure (said no one ever in May of 2025), Nebius could be a calculated swing at one of the fastest-growing corners of tech… and if they keep executing, the Bezos and Huang backed company could go from “interesting” to “industry-defining” in under a year.

Stocks.News has positions in Papa John’s, Nebius, Shopify, NVIDIA,  Amazon, and Microsoft.