Amazon's secretive Cambridge Alexa start-up doubles revenue and headcount
A secretive Cambridge technology start-up acquired by Amazon that helped pioneer the Amazon Echo smart speaker has doubled its headcount and revenues.
Evi Technologies, which is owned by Amazon and was responsible for a significant part of the development of its Alexa artificial intelligence technology, doubled its revenues in 2017 to £36m, up from around £18m in 2016.
The company also saw its staff numbers increase from 123 to 247 and increased its cash position from around £14m to £20.7m, according to its accounts.
Alexa is Amazon's voice assistant and a key part of its smart speaker technology. Speakers such as the Amazon Echo use Alexa, which allows users to ask the smart assistant questions or give it voice commands to play music, read the news and more.
Founded in 2007 as a voice recognition and artificial intelligence start-up, Evi was acquired by Amazon in 2012 for a reported £21m. The deal came as the US technology giant was beginning research on what would ultimately become the Echo speaker.
Evi started as True Knowledge, developing Evi as an early voice recognition app for smartphones. The company was backed by UK venture capital firm Octopus Ventures.
Its voice recognition app allowed users to use it as an answer engine, asking questions using normal language and receiving conversational-style answers.
Evi has developed into an integral part of Amazon Alexa. The business now shares its location with Amazon's UK Development Centre. The company now works on developing natural language for Alexa and answering use questions in a natural way.
After years of development, Amazon released its Amazon Echo smart speaker in late 2014. Amazon acquisitions of Evi and US start-up Yap helped fuel its research, alongside Amazon's Lab126 research team in California.
Evi shares a base in Cambridge alongside Amazon's other experimental companies, such as Prime Air, the company's proposed drone home delivery service. Evi's founder and chief executive, William Tunstall-Pedoe, left Amazon in 2016 to pursue a career in investment and venture capital.
Evi's research team is only a small part of Amazon's overall operations in the UK. The US retail giant has previously said it has invested £9.3bn in the UK economy since 2010. The company now supports a total of 27,000 jobs in the UK.
