Discounted cloud compute infrastructure for early-stage startups, now part of Akamai.
- Potential value:
- $120k in credits
- Provider:
- Akamai (Linode)
- Referral needed:
- No
Why this could be a strong fit
Useful for teams standardizing on Akamai (Linode) who want to offset cloud costs during the early build-out phase.
What you need to qualify
- Early-stage, for-profit company fewer than seven years old.
- At least one of the following: paid employees outside of the founders, active users who are not friends, family or investors, initial revenue, or VC funding.
- A defined plan for how you will scale your infrastructure.
- Plans include Akamai Cloud as one of the primary providers of your infrastructure.
- Existing customers qualify only if the business has not received more than US$3,000 in prior infrastructure credits.
- An Akamai Cloud account created with a corporate email address on your company domain, a valid credit card and a working website.
- Resellers and managed hosting providers are not eligible. Akamai welcomes all start-ups but prioritises SaaS, media and gaming.
Eligibility
- Eligible stages
- Pre-seed, Seed
- Countries
- Global, subject to the provider’s eligibility and approval
How to apply
- 1
Create an Akamai Cloud account
You must have an account before you apply. Sign up with the corporate email address on your company domain, a valid credit card and a working website.
- 2
Submit the Rise intake form
Complete the start-up details form on the Rise program page at akamai.com/cloud/start-ups/rise.
- 3
Wait for the review
The Akamai team reviews most applications within one to two weeks.
- 4
Take the discovery call
Accepted applicants have a discovery call with a member of the Rise team to work through the plan for scaling.
- 5
Receive the credits
After acceptance the credits are added to your Akamai Cloud account and remaining steps are coordinated with the program coordinator.