William Tunstall-Pedoe was a Senior member of the team that invented, built and launched Amazon Alexa raised $20 million to fund a new startup in the UK.

William Tunstall-Pedoe founded voice assistant startup Evi which was acquired by Amazon and was then a key member of the team that defined, built and launched Alexa.

Tunstall-Pedoe said his Cambridge- and London-based company, Unlikely AI, needed the money to start hiring developers of a new type of artificial-intelligence software.

Amadeus Capital Partners, Octopus Ventures and Patrick Pichette, the former chief financial officer of Google, and current Twitter board member, are among the backers of the startup.

Amazon’s Echo devices incorporate technology Tunstall-Pedoe helped develop at Evi, a British startup the world’s biggest retailer acquired in 2012.

Back in the day Evi’s voice-activated search app was among the strongest competitors to Apple’s infant Siri.