Today, we are excited to announce two more investments in education companies exploring integrations with Alexa – Unruly Studios and Zoobean.

Alexaファンドは、13週間プログラム、Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstarsが3年目を迎えたことをお知らせします。このプログラムは、音声がテクノロジーとの対話方法を根本から改善し、Alexaに関する最高のイノベーションには、初期段階のスタートアップ企業によりもたらされるものもある、という考えに基づいています。世界中から最大10社が本プログラムの参加企業として選ばれます。

The Alexa Fund is excited to announce the third year of the Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars.

Last week, we announced the Alexa Fund's investment in tado°, a Munich-based smart thermostat and climate control company that focuses primarily on comfort control systems for apartments and households in Europe.

Today, we’re excited to announce investments in three early-stage companies building Alexa-powered experiences and extending the future of conversational AI.

Today we announce an expansion of the Amazon Alexa Fellowship from 4 universities in 2017 to 18 universities in 2018, fueling the future of conversational AI research, education, and entrepreneurship. 

Today, the Alexa Fund is pleased to announce the nine companies selected for the Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, a program designed to support early-stage startups using voice to deliver transformative customer and business experiences.

We are excited to announce the Alexa Fund opened applications for startups worldwide to apply to the next Alexa Accelerator powered by Techstars.

We are pleased today to announce our follow-on investment in Pulse Labs, a scalable testing and analytical service that makes it easier for Alexa skill developers to vet their creations with users around the world.

Today we are excited to announce up to an additional $100 million in venture capital for the Alexa Fund targeted at international investment opportunities.

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.

Today, The Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, announced its inaugural class of nine companies focused on products and services ranging from consumer devices to enterprise solutions.

We invite you to join the students on their Alexa Prize journey and help them along the way. You can interact with their socialbots simply by saying “Alexa, let’s chat” on any device with Alexa.

Voice technology carries enormous promise, as many people know from their interactions with Alexa, the voice service that powers devices like Amazon Echo. Our teams here at Amazon are working hard to unlock that potential, but innovation requires a collective effort, from large companies like ours to two-person startups, and from casual hobbyists to major academic institutions.

Today, we’re excited to announce the Alexa Fund Fellowship, a new program to support universities and researchers focused on transformative voice technologies such as text-to-speech (TTS), natural language understanding (NLU), automatic speech recognition (ASR) and conversational artificial intelligence (AI).

Alexa Fund Fellows will receive funding, access to Alexa devices, and mentoring from an Alexa Science team member to develop an undergraduate or graduate curriculum around one or more of these disciplines. The year-long program culminates in a demo day where students can showcase their work for peers, university faculty and members of the Alexa team.

We’re also pleased to announce our first group of university participants: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Johns Hopkins University, University of Southern California (USC), and University of Waterloo. Both Carnegie Mellon and Waterloo have already chosen fellows and begun offering classes for engineering students, while courses from Johns Hopkins and USC will begin in fall 2017.

Voice is one of the most natural ways we can control and interact with the technology we use every day. From the kitchen to the beach, customers have told us that they love the ability to simply ask Alexa to stream their favorite songs, check weather and news reports, and access thousands of Alexa skills.

Today we’re excited to announce the Alexa Fund has added Vesper, developer of the world’s most advanced acoustic sensors, to the Alexa family by contributing to its Series A funding. The $15 million round was led by Boston-based venture capital firm Accomplice, and also includes investment support from Hyperlane, Miraenano Tech, and other undisclosed investors.

Vesper’s MEMS microphones use a patented piezoelectric design to prevent dust, water, solder flux vapors, and more from impacting performance, presenting a unique opportunity for manufacturers to build products for a variety of environments and use cases. Vesper’s latest product, VM1010, is the only wake-on-sound MEMS microphone on the market, introducing the possibility of always-listening devices at next-to-zero power draw.

According to Marwan Boustany, senior technology analyst, MEMS and Sensors, at IHS Markit, “MEMS microphones are growing so quickly because voice interaction is becoming ubiquitous. Microphones such as Vesper’s, which improve ruggedness and performance and support well-matched microphone arrays, may well accelerate many more use cases where voice is the standard user interface.”

As part of its commitment to invest up to $100 million in companies fueling voice technology innovation, the Alexa Fund is constantly looking for startups enabling new and exciting voice-activated capabilities for their customers. Vesper’s technology opens the door to adding Alexa to new device types, such as portable electronics where environmental resistance is an important attribute or where in-home devices require far-field applications for truly hands-free experiences.

Are you the next Alexa Fund business?

The Alexa Fund builds on Amazon’s track record of helping innovative individuals grow ideas into successful products and businesses. Amazon helps accelerate ideas by offering unique benefits to development teams, such as early access to Alexa capabilities and enhanced marketing support across channels.

Learn more about the Alexa Fund and its portfolio of companies on the Amazon Developer Portal.