In 2015, Amazon established the Alexa Fund to provide financial support to early-stage voice startups. However, with the recent emergence of large language models and the launch of Amazon’s Gen AI-powered Alexa+, as well as a new family of multimodal AI models, the fund is now seeking to expand its focus and invest more in AI startups.

According to a blog post shared by Amazon with TechCrunch, Paul Bernard, the leader of the Alexa Fund, explained that the company’s investment scope now encompasses areas such as AI-enabled hardware and smart agents, in addition to its original focus on voice technology.

“The rapid advancements in AI have created an inflection point, allowing the Alexa Fund to adopt new technologies while still serving its original mission,” Bernard stated. “As a result, the Fund has been investing in startups that advance the state-of-the-art in AI-enabled hardware, generative media, smart agents, emerging AI architectures, and more.”

To gain deeper insights into the evolving investment strategy of the Alexa Fund, we had the opportunity to speak with Paul Bernard, the director of the fund. He discussed the Fund’s renewed mission and its recent investments in various startups.

The Alexa Fund has invested in four new startups operating in different areas, including:

• NinjaTech AI: This all-in-one AI company boasts a chatbot capable of generating code, images, and videos, conducting in-depth research, and scheduling meetings. Similar to AI assistant platforms like Quora’s Poe, NinjaTech AI provides access to models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, Google, and DeepSeek, and operates its infrastructure on AWS.
• Hedra: Hedra is an AI media company that enables users to generate images, audio, and video through its studio. The company recently launched its Character-3 AI for various forms of content creation and secured $10 million in funding from a16z Games Speedrun, Abstract, and Index Ventures last year.
• Ario: Ario is an AI-powered family management app designed to handle scheduling and tasks. The company has developed a school email decoder that creates events and action items from school communication. Bernard expressed his admiration for the app, citing its ability to understand the personal context behind tasks. Other startups, such as Hearth Display and Maple, are also working on solving schedule management for families.
• HeyBoss: HeyBoss is a startup that allows users to create websites, apps, games, or prototypes simply by describing them. Other companies, including Cursor, Lovable, Replit, and Bolt.new, are also operating in this space.

For Amazon, these investments serve as a means to leverage its cloud and AI stack. Many of these startups gain early access to private APIs and SDKs, effectively becoming a testing ground for the e-commerce company. Amazon also provides access to senior executives and opportunities with Amazon Business.

Major companies in the AI sector, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, are actively funding promising startups that can utilize their AI models. OpenAI’s startup fund has backed numerous companies in the healthcare, robotics, edtech, and creative tools sectors. Anthropic has partnered with Menlo Ventures to create an investment vehicle for startups, while Google has recently backed companies like Glance and Toonsutra, providing them with access to various AI models.