Over the course of his more than two decades with the company, Dave Clark oversaw the online retailer's transition into a shipping and delivery behemoth before ascending to the No. 2 executive position alongside Jeff Bezos, the company's founder, and finally Andy Jassy, Bezos's successor. 

Now, Clark is betting on himself by utilizing his lifetime of experience as well as lessons learned during a brief, tumultuous period at the top of supply-chain startup Flexport.

In an interview with Fortune on Monday, Clark said that he created the AI-powered supply-chain startup Auger last summer and that it has raised $100 million in Series A funding, all of which came from the investment firm Oak HC/FT. Clark wants to assist midsize businesses with global supply chains—imagine the Fortune 500 outside the top 50—in combining data from several suppliers for their supply chain systems into a single operating system that resembles a user-friendly app more than a cumbersome enterprise solution.

Through Auger, Clark hopes to enable corporate customers to utilize straightforward text searches to acquire real-time answers to urgent issues about shipments, forecasts, and other crucial areas. According to Clark, this kind of visibility ought to contribute to a supply chain's increased efficiency and decreased costs.

According to Clark, businesses with international supply chains that don't have enormous internal IT departments will be the ideal Auger clients. The startup intends to eventually go beyond that, including into the government and defense sectors, but for now it will probably concentrate its efforts on American-based businesses. 

Clark returned to Washington State from Texas to found Auger, a Bellevue-based company. A spokesman for the business stated that it intends to hire 30 to 40 people within the next six months. Neither Auger nor Clark have chosen which AI model or models the business will employ as of yet.

After working at the company for 23 years, Clark became CEO of its worldwide consumer division in 2022. He was subordinate to Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, and then to Jassy, Bezos's successor. During his nearly ten years at the company, Clark held positions akin to those of a chief supply-chain officer. He launched and expanded Amazon's last-mile delivery network and established a new regional warehouse structure, which the company claims has aided in accelerating shipment times.