Perks

The Google for Startups Cloud Program covers Vertex AI, Gemini API, GPUs/TPUs and the rest of Google Cloud. Pre-funded companies get $2,000; seed-to-Series A startups get up to $200,000 over two years, or up to $350,000 if the company is AI-first.

AWS Activate gives any startup $1,000 of credits on the Founders tier (growing to $5,000 as you use AWS). The Portfolio tier, up to $200,000, is for startups affiliated with an Activate Provider; AI Lounge is applying to become a provider so members can claim it with an AI Lounge organization ID.

Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub starts you at $5,000 of Azure credits (including Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Foundry) and unlocks higher tiers up to $150,000 as you grow, plus GitHub Enterprise seats, Microsoft 365 and partner offers.

Cloudflare for Startups gives a year of credits for usage-based services such as Workers, Workers AI (up to $50,000), R2 (up to $10,000), AI Gateway and Vectorize. Core security and networking features are included at no cost. Tiers: $10,000 with no minimum funding, $100,000 for startups under $5M raised and funded by a Cloudflare partner, and $350,000 for startups with $5M+ raised.

DigitalOcean Startups (formerly Hatch) gives 12 months of credits for Droplets, Kubernetes, managed databases and the AI platform, plus 15 months of free Standard support. The credit amount is set by the DigitalOcean Startups partner you apply through.

Inception is NVIDIA's program for AI startups: no fees, no equity, no cohorts. Members get free self-paced Deep Learning Institute courses and discounted workshops, preferred pricing on select NVIDIA hardware and software, cloud credits from NVIDIA and partners (Nebius AI Lift up to $150K, Lambda $7,500 and others), Capital Connect investor introductions and co-marketing. Join it first, several other perks on this list require it.

Nebius is a large NVIDIA GPU cloud (Hopper and Blackwell) with managed clusters and an inference service. Through AI Lift, NVIDIA Inception members can receive up to $150,000 of cloud credits for training and scaling, $10,000 of inference credits, priority access to the newest GPUs, fast-tracked onboarding and co-marketing.

Lambda runs on-demand and reserved NVIDIA GPU instances and 1-click clusters. NVIDIA Inception members can claim $7,500 of Lambda Cloud credits through the Inception partner offers.

Modal is serverless compute for AI: Python functions that scale to thousands of GPUs per second. The startup program gives free compute credits (Modal does not publish the amount; founders report $500 to $50,000 depending on stage), direct access to Modal's engineering team and GTM amplification for launches and raises.

Runpod offers GPU pods, serverless endpoints, clusters and storage. The Starter tier gives pre-Series A startups $1,000 of credits with self-serve onboarding; the Growth tier adds $25,000 of bonus credits on a $50,000 commitment ($75,000 total) with a 12-month agreement and a dedicated onboarding call.

Render hosts web services, workers, cron jobs, Postgres and Key Value with git-based deploys. Every qualified startup gets $500 in credits; startups applying through a Render accelerator or VC partner get $2,500 to $25,000, and the AI tier gives $100,000 to AI-native companies backed by a top-tier partner VC. A separate migration credit of up to $10,000 covers switching costs. Credits are valid for one year.

Snowflake for Startups gives eligible companies free usage on their first contract, technical help and go-to-market support. Startups building customer-facing apps can apply to the 6-month Startup Accelerator, and portfolio companies of select VCs get extra free usage.

OVHcloud is a European cloud provider. Its Startup Program gives 12 months of credits for Public Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud, plus one-on-one time with OVHcloud engineers: €10,000 and 6 engineer hours at the Start level, up to €100,000 and 20 hours at the Scale level. No investor or partner is needed. Bare metal is not covered, and GPU credits apply to older cards (V100, V100S, RTX 5000).