Google is wooing up-and-coming startups to its Cloud Platform with up to $100,000 in credits for a year in an effort to grow its Cloud Platform for Startups initiative.
Startups with less than $5 million in funding and less than $500,000 in yearly revenue are eligible for the new program.
"This offer supports our core Google Cloud Platform philosophy: we want developers to focus on code; not worry about managing infrastructure," Julie Pearl, Google director of developer relations, wrote in a company blog post. "Starting today, startups can take advantage of this offer and begin using the same infrastructure platform we use at Google."
The Mountain View, Calif.-based tech giant has four criteria for startups that want to be part of the program:
Y Combinator, 500 Startups, SV Angel, Techstars, Code for America, Chicago's 1871 and Google's own Google Ventures are among the startups that are eligible for the program.
The impressive $100,000 credit is something of a "marketing gimmick," according to TechCrunch.
"Most startups won't need anywhere close to this many resources to get going unless they either become extremely popular ... or plan to use Google's servers for very heavy computations," TechCrunch's Frederic Lardinois wrote.
Besides the Cloud Platform credits, startups will have Google resources including office hours for one-on-one technical architecture reviews with Cloud Platform engineers and 24/7 coverage with phone support.
Google is working with more than 50 partners worldwide for the initiative, according to Pearl.
"Thousands of startups have built successful applications on Google Cloud Platform and those applications have grown to serve tens of millions of users," Pearl wrote. "We look forward to helping the next generation of startups launch great products."
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