By Buying The Ring Doorbell, Amazon Is Expanding Alexa's World Once Again

According the New York Times, Amazon paid $1.1 billion for Ring, which makes security cameras and video doorbells which stream live video and audio to smartphones. Ring was an early portfolio company of Amazon's Alexa Fund, which got off the ground in 2015. Amazon invested an unknown amount in the startup as part of a funding round in March 2016, according to Crunchbase. As I wrote in our recent feature, the Alexa Fund's main goal is to seek out startups that might extend Alexa into new parts of consumers's lives. It lets users ask Alexa to show them their front door video feed on an Echo Show's video screen.