Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is pouring more money into Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal reported today, with Bezos leading a new $12 million funding round for the news website.

Business Insider, the technology news operation led by former Wall Street investment banker Henry Blodget, has now raised nearly $30 million in seven years. The site is known for its attention-grabbing headlines, and aggregation of content from other news sources.

In a post published today, Blodget notes that Business Insider will use the fresh cash to hire more people — from journalists to photographers to product development staff —  and launch a Europe news service based in the United Kingdom. WSJ also reported that the site, which Bezos is apparently “nuts” for, earned $20 million in revenues last year.

Bezos, who had already invested in Business Insider previously, also bought the Washington Post for $250 million this past August. The Amazon boss recently asked Blodget to join him two weeks ago during a visit with Washington Post staff to discuss the difficulties around publishing news on the Internet. Bezos is spearheading a growth strategy at the paper as noted by the New York Times last month.

The connection between Bezos and Blodget actually dates back to 1998, when Blodget famously predicting in 1998 that Amazon.com’s stock would soar past $400 per share — it did, and Blodget’s career quickly launched from there before he was banned from the securities industry for publicly supporting tech stocks.

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