Google may be the saving grace to many up-and-coming startups. The company’s Cloud Platform for Startups program is giving away $100,000 in cloud computing credits to businesses less than five years old that have less than $500,000 in annual revenue. Aside from the aforementioned requirements, qualifying startups need to have less than $5 million in funding and never have used Cloud Platform Credits before.
Google is working with accelerators, incubators and investors to build a community of cloud users that will be dedicated to its services and products for life. It also takes away business from Amazon Web Services, Google’s largest – and most successful – competitor. It’s a business savvy move that will garner both attention and loyalty from fledgling startups.
Cloud Platform for Startups wants to be the go-to spot for all issues cloud users face. The program is offering 24/7 help and support and one-on-one technical reviews with Google’s engineers. The Platform for Startups is also looking to be the foundation on which new Internet companies break ground. This is Google’s way of working with fledgling companies while forming relationships with what could be the next big thing. While the company is technically not funding the startups, it is offering free services that make it hard for customers to step away. Their $100,000 investment pales against the number of loyal customers to be gained by this program.
Julie Pearl, Director of Developer Relations for Google, blogged about the program’s well-known users and how the cloud platform’s successes continue to grow. “Thousands of startups have built successful applications on Google Cloud Platform and those applications have grown to serve tens of millions of users,” she wrote. “It has been amazing to watch Snapchat send over 700 million photos and videos a day and Khan Academy teach millions of students. We look forward to helping the next generation of startups launch great products.”
