Boost your startup

with AWS Activate

How to become a scalable, reliable,
and cost-optimized startup.
Table of contents

Introduction .. . ...................................................... 3

What is AWS Activate?............................................ 4

Who can apply?..................................................... 5

What are the benefits of AWS Activate?. . .................... 6

AWS Activate Console..................................... 7

AWS Activate Credits ...................................... 8

AWS Startup Lofts.......................................... 9

Startups building with AWS Activate .. ...................... 10

Get started with AWS Activate today........................ 15

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I N T R O D U C T IO N

You have the great idea.

Let’s build it together
with AWS Activate.
More startups have experienced success on Amazon Web Services
(AWS) than on any other cloud provider. To help the next generation
of startups succeed, AWS Activate offers a one-of-a-kind startup
program with the resources needed to support your startup. From
the moment you join AWS Activate, you will have access to benefits,
including personalized expert guidance, AWS templates to build
and deploy your product, and Activate exclusive offers, including
reduced cost or free access to third-party services, products, and
memberships, valued up to $800,000. As you grow your startup,
you may qualify for up to $100,000 in AWS Activate credits*, plus
additional technical support credits and other benefits.

Take a moment to learn how to level up your startup with

AWS Activate.

*All AWS credits are in USD and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. 3
What is AWS Activate?
AWS Activate is a dedicated program for startups in their development—
from idea to exponential growth. Since 2013, AWS Activate has enrolled
more than 200,000 startups and invested more than $2 billion in
startups in the form of AWS credits*.

All startups less than 10 years old are welcome to apply for AWS
Activate. After filling out the AWS Activate application form, you’ll
gain instant access to benefits that can serve your startup throughout
its lifetime. With resources including expert training, pre-built
infrastructure templates, customized content that scales with your
business, and the opportunity to apply for AWS Activate credits to
help offset your spend, every step of your startup journey can become
simpler and smarter.

*All AWS credits are in USD and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions.
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Who can apply? A W S A C T I VAT E F O U N D E R S

For unfunded or funded startups

AWS Activate is open to any eligible startups.
You will only need to create a free AWS account. To apply, you’ll need to meet the following criteria:
Then, you can apply for the AWS Activate
program and gain immediate access to several
AWS Activate benefits. 1 Be new to AWS Activate

When your product is built, you can apply to 2 Have not previously received credits from AWS Activate Portfolio

receive AWS Activate credits to access scalable,

3 Have a functioning company website or company public profile
reliable, and secure cloud services like compute,
storage, database, analytics, Internet of Things,
machine learning, and many others to bring your
business idea to life. The AWS Activate credits
application* form will ask you to choose between
A W S A C T I VAT E P O R TF O LIO
two tiers: AWS Activate Founders and AWS
Activate Portfolio.
For self-funded or funded startups
To apply, you’ll need to meet the following criteria:

1 Be associated with an AWS Activate Provider, such as a VC,

incubator, accelerator, or startup-enabling organization, and
have their ORG ID

2 Have a functioning company website

3 Must not have exceeded $100,000 USD in awarded or

redeemed AWS credits from AWS Activate

* You will receive notification of the AWS Activate

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credits application outcome within 7–10 days.
What are the benefits of
AWS Activate?
As soon as you join AWS Activate, an entire world of benefits will be available Exclusive Offers (AEO). This is a startup marketplace that connects third-
to you. At the earliest stages of the growth journey, our AWS Activate program party (vendor) services and tools (i.e., HubSpot, Slack, Twilio) to AWS Activate
provides startups with a host of benefits, including AWS credits, technical startups. We negotiate deals with each vendor to help AWS Activate startups
support, and training. You can access many of these benefits through accelerate the growth of their businesses with the tools they need to build,
the AWS Activate Console, which is a personalized hub full of resources grow, and scale. There are 80 offers, including reduced cost or free access to
tailored to your startup needs at every stage of your journey. Through the third-party services, products, and memberships, valued up to $800,000.
AWS Activate Console, we offer support to founders at every stage of their
startup’s journey: from the initial idea, to building an MVP, to securing that Additionally, AWS Activate grows with you. When you deploy on AWS, AWS
first customer, to scaling the business on AWS and beyond. The AWS Activate Activate can support you with up to $100,000 in AWS Activate credits. AWS
Console also provides founders with personalized recommendations on a credits give you the freedom to experiment with different AWS services—try out
wide range of training topics that might be of interest based on their AWS different features until you have the infrastructure that best fits your business
usage. Also in the AWS Activate Console, you can take advantage of Activate and are ready to apply for the credits that can jump-start your success.

Take advantage of all the possible benefits with AWS Activate

Access to free tools and resources Content and expert support

More than 40 solution templates to build Unlimited access to best practices training
and deploy your product with AWS Learn

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1 AWS Activate Console
The AWS Activate Console is your personalized hub full of tools, resources, and content
tailored to your startup’s needs. Designed to simplify and support every stage of your
startup journey, from ideating to building and beyond, it’s a one-stop shop that delivers the
personalized solutions you need to get started on AWS quickly and grow your business.

Here is a deeper look at the AWS Activate Console tools:

• 40+ solution templates built by AWS experts. The right template allows you
to iterate, demonstrate viability, and get your team on the same page with
deployment within 60 minutes. Already battle-tested and tailored to a wide
variety of use cases, you can experiment on these templates even with no
previous infrastructure experience.
• Personalized resources that scale with your startup. By matching your AWS
Activate profile, interests, and usage to content, your AWS Activate Console
grows as your startup does, delivering the specific solutions you need at
every stage.
• Best practices training from AWS experts. AWS powers the world’s best
companies, and our experts are ready to pass their knowledge on to you.
We can help you build the foundational skills you need to design and build a
modern startup.
• Real-time updates. AWS Activate Console gives you real-time updates on the
health of your AWS environment, helps you discover new AWS services, and is the
monitoring tool you need to help keep your growth on track.
• Cost optimization tools. If you have AWS credits, your AWS Activate Console can
help you maximize your spend. It gives you real-time visibility into your balances,
alerts you of pending credit exhaustion, and offers tailored cost optimization tips
to make the most of your spend.

Learn more about AWS Activate Console › 7

2 AWS Activate credits
All AWS Activate members can apply for credits* when ready to begin building their MVP
business. As you deploy and grow on AWS, you can apply for credits to help your startup grow
faster and reduce your startup burn. You can also harness the right resources at the right
time and get AWS expert support when you need it the most.

If approved, there are several ways AWS Activate credits can accelerate your business:

1 Use your AWS Activate credit balance for more than 200 fully featured
services from AWS, including machine learning (ML), databases, security,
storage, applications, dev tools, and many more.

2 Lean on the AWS cost-optimization tools to ensure you’re optimizing your

credits and making informed decisions as you build.

3 Access the support you need with AWS Developer Support credits or AWS
Business Support credits. Chat with a cloud engineer to helpovercome
complex technical problems or for general guidance on services.

4 Leverage your AWS Activate credits and AWS Developer Support credits
to monitor the balance and expiration dates of all your credits in your AWS
Activate Console.

*All AWS credits are in USD and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. 8
3 AWS Startup Loft
AWS Activate members have access to both physical and digital spaces, including our AWS
Startup Loft locations in San Francisco, New York, London, and Tokyo, as well as our AWS
Virtual Loft. AWS Startup Loft locations are open to all AWS Activate members at any stage
of their startup journey and provide startups with the resources, events, training, and
networking opportunities they need to grow their businesses. AWS Startup Loft locations
offer quiet, dedicated coworking areas where you can get answers to technical questions
from one of our on-demand experts or chat with a fellow founder about some of the
challenges you both face.

If you can’t easily access a physical AWS Startup Loft, take advantage of our AWS Virtual Loft
offerings, including:

• Virtual one-on-one sessions with startup experts

• Webinars on a wide variety of startup topics and skill levels
• Virtual workshops and training programs

Once you are approved as an AWS Activate member, you become part of a global network
of startup leaders who share their experiences, push each other to excel, and forge
connections that could become lasting professional partnerships.

Learn more about AWS Startup Loft ›

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Startups building with AWS Activate
For over 15 years, AWS has helped more startups launch, build, and succeed than any other cloud provider. Since the
beginning, we’ve developed the most complete and innovative suite of services to help startups go beyond what’s
possible, prove their ideas, and define the future, all while controlling their spend.

Here are some of the startups pushing the boundaries of possibility and bringing their ideas to life with AWS Activate.

Launches and scales global payments platform,

processing millions of dollars of monthly Solutions built from entrepreneurial spirit
payments

Powers web insights for businesses and cuts cloud Reduces time spent on cloud management by 90%
costs by 25%

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Paytron launches and scales
“
AWS Activate made an incredible
global payments platform, difference to our business. As a
startup, you’re trying to buy yourself
processing millions of dollars
time in the early stages. Using AWS
of monthly payments on AWS Activate, we could focus on building
without dedicating engineers
Paytron is a financial services technology startup founded in 2020.
Paytron provides its customers with a global payments processing to maintain our network and
platform that automates online transactions, international transfers, infrastructure.”
invoices, accounts payables, and payroll. Accountants and other
customers use Paytron to simplify their jobs by streamlining workflow Jaco Veldsman, Founder & CTO at Paytron
approvals and other key operations.

After evaluating different cloud providers, Paytron chose to launch

its global payment platform on AWS. “I could navigate the AWS
platform easily and was surprised by how quickly we got up and
running on AWS,” says Jaco Veldsman, founder and chief technology
officer at Paytron.

Prior to launching its platform, Paytron took advantage of AWS

Activate, a program offering startups AWS Activate credits, support, and
architectural guidance. Paytron used AWS Activate credits to employ
contractors to help the company initiate its DevOps development model.

Read more ›

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Gallus Insights: Solutions built
“
There are a lot of benefits on the
from entrepreneurial spirit AWS side that I had no idea about:
their entrepreneurship program
Gallus Insights provides tactical and strategic insights across the has been super helpful and AWS
financial industry, the marketing industry, human resources, capital
Activate provides credits for
markets, and more for a fraction of the cost that it would take clients
to provide their own analytics. startups. It’s like you help startup
To quickly and efficiently put data in the hands of decision-makers,
firms live rent-free for the first few
Gallus Insights’ technology brings data from various systems and months or years. Memo to startup
databases into its centralized cloud data platform, which is powered
by AWS. The data is secure, and its design allows Gallus to leverage
founders: Knock on the AWS door.
the full power of the cloud, which brings unlimited computing They will help.”
resources and unlimited amounts of data for top performance without
any scalability restrictions. Augie Del Rio, CEO & Co-Founder at Gallus Insights

Read more ›

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Apify powers web insights for
“
The support we received through
businesses, cuts cloud costs by AWS Activate for credits, training,
and cost control was a key reason
25% using AWS
we chose AWS...It undoubtedly
Apify, a Prague-based startup founded in 2015, developed a web-
contributed to our early success.”
scraping and automation platform and a set of open tools that collect
Marek Trunkát, CTO at Apify
and analyze data from the web. Its customers leverage the insights
gained from this data to improve their strategies around anything from
product pricing to customer sentiment.

Apify began using AWS through AWS Activate.

By building its offering on AWS, the company has grown rapidly and
now provides services to 1,000 organizations in 179 countries. It has also
scaled to process 1,000 terabytes of data a month, reduced compute
costs by 25 percent, and boosted the efficiency of its development team.

Read more ›

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Spacelift reduces time spent
“
We moved so quickly thanks to
on cloud management by 90% help from the AWS support teams
and the AWS Activate program...
using AWS
We were able to quickly verify
Spacelift helps businesses easily set up and manage complex cloud
product assumptions and the
environments, so they can do more with fewer team members. Its platform support team helped us to get key
combines continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes
to manage infrastructure as code (IaC).
functionalities right.”
Marcin Wyszynski, Founder and Chief Product Officer at Spacelift
Using AWS, the startup has helped customers, such as Checkout.com and
Kin, cut down on the time spent on repetitive infrastructure maintenance
tasks by 90 percent. For example, by automating security and data privacy
configurations, the startup has reduced the time needed to handle these
issues by a factor of 10 compared to doing the work manually.

The company built its system on AWS from day one and was up and
running in just four months, twice as fast as it had estimated it would take.

Read more ›

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Get started with Need some help with your
application? Want more
AWS Activate today information on how AWS
Activate can boost your
It’s super easy and only takes a few minutes. startup? Contact the AWS
Activate Team today.
Step 1: New to AWS? First, create a free AWS account. If you already have an
account, go to Step 2. Contact us ›

Create an AWS account ›

Step 2: Log in to your AWS account, apply for AWS Activate, and get instant
access to your AWS Activate Console! If you want to apply for credits right
away, you can choose to continue straight to the credits application in Step 3.

Join AWS Activate ›

Step 3: When you’re ready, apply for the credits that can help offset your AWS
spend. Do you have an AWS Activate Provider ORG ID from your VC firm or
other org? If yes, choose the AWS Activate Portfolio credits package. If not,
choose the AWS Activate Founders credits package.

Apply for AWS Activate credits ›

Step 4: Log in to your AWS Activate Console, or look out for an email from
AWS on the outcome of your application within 7–10 business days.

Log in ›

If you are building on AWS China Regions, please apply for the AWS Activate China program here.
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*All AWS credits are in USD and subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions.
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