Aussie start-ups called as AWS’s global AI accelerator receives $346m injection

AWS is calling for Australian start-ups to apply for its global Generative AI Accelerator after the program received a $US230m ($346m) cash injection.

Australian AI start-ups have been called to enter a new accelerator with a shot at pitching US investors in Las Vegas. Picture: Joe Klamar / AFP

AWS is calling for Australian start-ups to apply for its global Generative AI Accelerator after the program received a $US230m ($346m) cash injection.

The accelerator is seeking 80 early-stage start-ups to take part in a 10-week program that includes mentoring and access to up to $US1m worth of AWS credits.

The company’s Australian head of start-ups John Kearney said he’d be doing everything in his power to get more start-ups on board to represent Australia.

“Last year in the global accelerator program, Leonardo. Ai was the only one chosen which was a phenomenal opportunity for us in Australia to have a customer profile to that level,” he said.

But one start-up wasn’t enough and now that the program has grown almost four times in size he wanted more Australians to pitch in.

“In Australia, we will be championing hard to make sure we get fair representation of the Australian start-ups into the program and that they get access to the funding that’s there and the support to scale and grow,” Mr Kearney said.

“Looking at what happened with Leonardo. Ai last year, I think we’ve got some strong reference now.”

Finalists from the accelerator will be flown to the US to pitch investors, companies and partners at the cloud computing giant’s annual AWS re: Invent 2024 conference in Las Vegas, the US, in December.

Aside from credits for the AWS platform, the US trip might be the golden ticket for some, and an opportunity to get in front of global investors at an earlier stage.

“A lot of the time (Australian start-ups) want to get access to international investors at a later stage of growth,” Mr Kearney said.

But getting access at the earlier stage could help build a stronger capital pipeline.

“Having them plugged into the investor community in the US is significantly beneficial,” he said, pointing to Australian generative AI art platform Leonardo. Ai, which was one of 21 start-ups in the AWS AI accelerator last year.

Leonardo. Ai went on to raise a $47m round in December from several venture capital firms including Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital and Samsung Next.

The program is being launched as new EY research found a significant shortfall in investment in AI start-ups in Australia compared to the US. Australia has invested about $500m into AI start-ups whereas the US has invested over $67bn.

AWS would not look to take a stake in any of the companies that enter the accelerator.

It does appear the company can still benefit from the program as many may choose to become AWS customers.

AWS vice president of artificial intelligence products Matt Wood said most of the AI unicorns globally were customers.

“For more than 18 years, AWS has helped more start-ups to build, launch, and scale their business than any other cloud provider — it’s no coincidence that 96 per cent of all AI/ML unicorns run on AWS,” he said.

“With this new effort, we will help start-ups launch and scale world-class businesses, providing the building blocks they need to unleash new AI applications that will impact all facets of how the world learns, connects, and does business.”

Mr Kearney said the credits could be used to access a number of AWS’ on AI services including Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker as well as AWS compute, storage, and database technologies.

“I think the most significant thing here which has changed this year is up to $1m per start-up in credits. Being able to have access to up to that amount of funding to run and build your models is significant for early-stage start-ups … it’s almost unseen in the market,” he said.

Those cloud credits also arrive after a little over a year of scrutiny on cloud computing costs. The Australian has reported that many companies had begun to reassess their cloud spend and usage in 2022 as many of the world’s largest tech companies began cost cutting and making thousands of roles redundant.