Power your fast-growing, enterprise-tech startup
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Global Startup program is an invite-only, go-to-market program supporting early to mid-stage startups that have raised institutional funding, achieved product-market fit, and are ready to scale.
This program offers your startup unique support by assigning Partner Development Managers (PDMs) and Partner Solution Architects (PSAs) with deep AWS knowledge and startup or business development experience. Get support for your business in three key areas: product development, go-to-market, and co-sell.
Explore success stories and how to get started below.
Product development
Become enterprise-ready by adopting Well-Architected best practices to reduce workload risks.
Accelerate product development through architecture reviews, immersive workshops, and integration with AWS products and services.
Differentiate your solutions by working with AWS Partner Solutions Architects to optimize your solutions for customer use cases.
Go-to-market
Increase visibility through case studies, win wires, blogs, and the AWS Startup Partner Solutions webpage.
Generate leads by participating in seminars, events, and webinars, and receive invites to AWS-led events.
Access Marketing Development Funding (MDF) to accelerate outreach, offset the cost of campaigns and content development, list your solutions in AWS Marketplace or AWS Data Exchange (ADX), and more.
Co-sell
Receive dedicated support from co-sell specialists to drive engagement with the AWS sales and field teams.
Reduce sales cycles and accelerate existing deals with assistance from AWS sellers. Generate new opportunities through customer introductions and fund your proof-of-concepts.
Looking to deploy cutting-edge solutions?
Success Stories
Reltio
Cazena
Cloudinary
Ambra Health
MachineMetrics
CloudBolt
Spotinst
Read the case study »
Get Started
The AWS Global Startups Program is designed for early to mid-stage VC-backed startups (generally Series A through Series C) that have differentiated products for AWS customers.
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Step 1: Confirm your Startup qualifies for the program
- If you are an early to mid-stage VC-backed startup, follow the outlined steps to participate in the program.
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Step 2: Join the AWS Partner Network (APN)
- Join the APN at no cost by creating your AWS Partner Central account.
- Enroll in the Software Path, specifically designed for organizations that develop software that runs on or is integrated with AWS.
- Upon completing the registration process, your Startup will receive a welcome email with prescriptive guidance on information required to be submitted to the AWS Global Startup team for evaluation.
- Start working with our team to get qualified and build your ‘Better Together’ story form and Qualification form upon receiving the welcome email and follow the instructions in the welcome email to submit the forms.
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Step 3: Become ACE eligible
- Watch Grow Your Business with the AWS Customer Engagement Program (ACE) to become eligible for co-selling.
- Share 10 qualified partner opportunities (over a rolling 12-month period) with AWS through the ACE Pipeline Manager in AWS Partner Central.
- Upload 2 Public References to AWS Partner Central. You can submit these references under the “Market” tab in Partner Central.
Grow Your Business with the AWS Customer Engagement Program (ACE) (1:37) -
Step 4: Complete the Foundational Technical Review (FTR)
- Determine if your product is ready for FTR. Watch Leveraging the AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) to learn how to validate your product.
- Evaluate your software architecture leveraging the validation checklist and complete the FTR.
Leveraging the AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) (3:18) -
Step 5: Create a listing in AWS Marketplace
- Create a listing in the AWS Marketplace to qualify for the AWS Global Startup Program.
- Watch Get Started as a Seller in AWS Marketplace video to determine if listing in AWS Marketplace aligns with your product delivery model and business goals.
Get Started as a Seller on AWS Marketplace (2:33) -
Step 6: Apply for ISV Accelerate Program
Once you’ve completed steps 1-5, apply for the ISV Accelerate Program. Upon acceptance into this program, reach out to startuppartners@amazon.com to apply for the Global Startup Program.
Partner Testimonials
“The AWS Global Startup Program has been instrumental to our rapid growth. Being a part of the ISV Accelerate program and AWS Marketplace helps us accelerate deals and has been a driving force in Orca Security’s 800 percent YoY revenue growth. In sharing a customer and security obsessed mindset, we also value AWS’ critical product development support that enables us to heavily focus on R&D to advance the cloud security industry and solve our shared customers’ needs.”
- Avi Shua, CEO and Co-Founder, Orca Security
"The AWS Global Startup Program has enabled our team to effectively go-to-market with AWS. Helping us grow our AWS attached opportunities by over 300% in the quarter since we joined the program through identifying new co-sell opportunities, aligning strategic introductions, exploring custom co-marketing opportunities, and advocating on our behalf throughout AWS."
- Jing Xie, Director, Cloud Business Development & Alliances
"Chad and Gokhul from the Global Startups program are indispensable elements of our rocket ship at Quilt Data. From customer engagement to strategy, to event coordination and marketing material, the global startups program and team work tirelessly to show our customers that we’re part of a unified team, through our channel partnership."
- Simon Kohstamm, Director, Sales
"The AWS Global Startup Program has enabled our team to effectively go-to-market with AWS. We’ve seen substantial growth in opportunities through strategic introductions, co-selling partnerships, and co-marketing initiatives."
- Lisa Counsell, RN, COO
"The AWS Global Startup Program has enabled our team to effectively go-to-market with AWS. Helping us grow our AWS attached opportunities by over 150% in the quarter since we joined the program through identifying new co-sell opportunities, aligning strategic introductions, exploring custom co-marketing opportunities, and advocating on our behalf throughout AWS."
- Aran Khanna, CEO at Archera
"The AWS Global Startup Program has been a fantastic resource for Prognos Health the past 4 months, assisting with the complex AWS landscape, aligning co-sell introductions, suggesting marketing opportunities and networking throughout the AWS organization. Having a single point of contact to pave a path and provide recommendations on how to maximize opportunities, has been invaluable."
- Chris Hayes, SVP Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Prognos Health
"The AWS Global Startup Program has transformed Pepperdata's go-to-market path with AWS in the past six months. The GSP team offered targeted co-marketing opportunities, provided key resources to identify and align new co-sell opportunities, and enabled strategic level discussions with core technical and business leaders to propel our business forward. The level of support has been extraordinary in helping us build our business on AWS."
- Ash Munshi, CEO at Pepperdata
"The AWS Global Startup Program has enabled our startup to raise visibility for our solutions within AWS, the AWS Partner Community, and among customers. With their support, we have identified and executed on highly effective initiatives that drove a 500% YoY growth in AWS Marketplace subscriptions to our products and jump started ISVA co-sell motions with dozens of AWS selling teams."
- John Tonini, VP of Alliances at Cloud Storage Security
"From the very beginning through our growth phase, AWS has been an invaluable partner, offering us unwavering support. With flexible pricing models and access to architects, we seamlessly scaled our platform on AWS. Additionally, the AWS startup support team proved indispensable in guiding us through AWS market teams, ensuring successful go-to-market endeavors."
- CEO Hannigan
"Drata's rapid growth as a company has been accelerated even more so since joining the AWS Global Startup Program. For founders and leaders of rising startups, the AWS Global Startup Program is essential to company scalability by providing a wide variety of resources to help organizations with product development, GTM efforts, and co-sell initiatives."
- Daniel Marashlian, CTO
"The AWS Global Startup program has enabled our global sales teams to more effectively expand our go-to-market reach. We have a strong collaboration with the global AWS team which has been our strategic partner for growth and go-to-market initiatives. Since our partnership, we have seen an acceleration of deal velocity, expanded reach into customer accounts, and increased demand through co-marketing initiatives."
- Pieter Danhieux, Co-founder & CEO
