Photo credit: Cole Lakes Photography

The nine companies in the inaugural class of the Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, capped off their 13-week program with final presentations to investors and the public on October 17 during Demo Day and Demo Night events. The presentations demonstrated new ideas that push the envelope on voice innovation and bring new delight to customers and developers.

The Alexa Accelerator is a program of the Alexa Fund designed to identify promising early stage companies to work with mentors from the Techstars community and experts from Alexa teams and, more broadly, Amazon. Teams from Alexa and Techstars assessed hundreds of applications from 54 countries. After months of screening and diligence, nine companies were chosen to join the program. Each company received an investment in connection with their participation in the program, and all join the growing list of companies in the Alexa Fund portfolio.

The 13-week program was divided into thematic periods. During the first phase, dozens of mentors were introduced to the companies with the goal of helping them simplify and focus their businesses. This feedback mechanism challenged the companies to sift through competing points of view to distill essential elements of their offerings.

During the second phase of the program, companies used the feedback to design their program objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). Companies were required to track progress against their objectives and KPIs, helping them maintain focus during the program. During this phase, each company chose a group of lead mentors to help with topics such as product features, customer segments, pricing strategies, and fundraising. And each Friday, the companies came together in end-of-week reviews led by the program directors, Aviel Ginzburg from Techstars and myself from the Alexa Fund, to record week-over-week progress against goals.

Finally, in the last phase of the program, the companies turned their attention to investor relations and their final pitch presentations. Each company practiced their presentations multiple times per week, and prepared and tested answers to tough questions they might expect from potential investors.

Photo credit: Cole Lakes Photography

During the program, each of the companies tackled different challenges that show the promise of new voice-first technologies and experiences. Aspinity is producing a new chip set that dramatically reduces the power needed for battery-operated, voice-enabled devices. Comet and Pulse Labs provide new tools for collaboration and testing of voice skills and machine learning models. Twine is enabling workplace collaboration powered by voice and Botnik is lending creativity to users through a new AI creativity platform. Play Impossible, Tinitell, Sensible Object, and Novel Effect all bring new interactions for family play and entertainment with Alexa.

The Alexa Accelerator demonstrates that entrepreneurs everywhere are ready to build new companies around the promise of voice-powered experiences. After all, it is still Day One for voice and Alexa.