Amazon and Techstars announce inaugural Alexa Next Stage cohort

The Alexa Fund, Amazon’s $200 million venture fund for voice-focused startups, and Techstars today revealed the inaugural cohort of companies participating in Alexa Next Stage. Alexa Next Stage, which was unveiled in March, is a pilot accelerator tailored to later-stage companies with a mature product offering and growing customer adoption. It’s designed as a virtual program, allowing companies to participate from anywhere and conferring access to a global network of experts, mentors, business leaders, and investors, as well as support for Alexa integrations and opportunities.

The pandemic appears to have supercharged voice app usage, which was already on an upswing. According to a study by NPR and Edison Research, the percentage of voice-enabled device owners who use commands at least once a day rose between the beginning of 2020 and the start of April. Just over a third of smart speaker owners say they listen to more music, entertainment, and news from their devices than they did before, and owners report requesting an average of 10.8 tasks per week from their assistant this year compared with 9.4 different tasks in 2019.