Hey Walmart, here’s the startup that inspired the thing Amazon just launched

Amazon’s Echo Show^[1] killer feature is video calls. If you buy a couple of devices, you can call each other using the device. And it should be so easy that young kids and grandparents will be able to use it in no time.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Amazon invested in a startup called Nucleus then built a copycat. And today is a rough day for the young startup.^[2]

Nucleus spent a long time figuring out if there was a potential market for this kind of device. It came up with a dead simple product with a display, a camera, a speaker and a microphone. When you tap on someone’s name, it calls that person.

If the other person has a Nucleus device, it’s going to ring the other device. If you’re traveling, you can also pick up Nucleus calls using the mobile app. Finally, Nucleus has integrated Amazon’s Alexa so that you can ask queries like on the Amazon Echo.

After years of work, the company launched its device^[3]. You can buy it on Amazon^[4] and other websites.

You might think video calls aren’t that innovative and it’s just pure coincidence that the Echo Show does the same thing. The only issue is that Amazon is the main investor in Nucleus. Last year, the startup raised^[5] a $5.6 million Series A funding round from Amazon’s Alexa Fund^[6].

Here’s Nucleus’ demo video:

And here’s Amazon’s intro video:

These things look so similar that you might think that the same team designed both devices. But a Nucleus representative confirmed that the team wasn’t involved in any way with the...