Google is offering $100,000 worth of use of its cloud platform for free, if you’re a startup.
What’s a startup? Google has some pretty specific criteria:
- The startup must be in an approved accelerator, incubator or VC fund
- The startup cannot have previously received Google cloud platform credits
- Must have received $5 million or less in funding so far
- Must have less than $500,000 in revenue
So, that would leave pretty early-stage startups eligible for this sizeable credit. More details can be found here.
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In addition to the $100,000 in credits for all of Google’s cloud platform tools, the startup also gets scheduled 1:1 technical architecture reviews with Google cloud experts, and the company offers support services on top of it.
The cloud is a natural landing spot for startups. The ability to spin up potentially massive amounts of compute power without any upfront capital investment and only pay for what’s used is ideal for a low-budget startup. It’s not surprising cloud providers are targeting startups too. If Google can get the next hot viral app to be hosted on its platform then when that company grows up into a big company, it will be paying Google a lot of money to host a big service on its cloud. AWS, for example, talks about how Pinterest, which was once a startup, is one of the company’s most successful customers.
Google isn’t the only cloud provider with a free offer today. IBM also announced one month of free test service for its SoftLayer cloud service. AWS has a free usage tier it offers customers to try outs its cloud too.