Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that its Generative AI Spotlight program in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) has been met with overwhelming interest, particularly in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).
READ:AWS announces $230 million commitment for generative AI startups
The four-week accelerator program, designed to nurture early-stage generative AI startups, originally planned to select up to 25 ANZ startups but ultimately accepted 46 due to high demand.
The program provided selected startups with access to AWS generative AI tools and services, as well as business and technical expertise from industry experts. Participants also had the opportunity to connect with potential investors and receive up to $100,000 in AWS credits.
Kate O’Keeffe, co-founder and CEO at Heatseeker, an AI platform that helps companies grow through live market experiments, said: “AI is evolving rapidly so it’s great AWS is uplifting the local sector with what we need to create globally successful generative AI-enabled businesses. Throughout the six weeks of the program, the AWS team curated dozens of local VCs that we pitched to and we even met some investors we hadn’t engaged with previously.”
Alain Richardt, founder and CEO of Atomic Tessellator, a chemistry and material science platform powered by AI, said: “The AWS Gen AI spotlight was very valuable for us – the sheer depth of support that AWS can offer both technical and business was impressive. Through this program we got exposure to top tier investors who have already taken decisive action and fuelled our progress”
Will Ashford, founder and CEO of TrueState, an end-to-end machine learning development platform that leverages GenAI to accelerate delivery, said: “I found the AWS GenAI Spotlight program incredibly useful for understanding AWS’s AI offerings and how they can support growing companies like TrueState. The added bonus was the chance to connect with investors from Australia and beyond, making it a worthwhile experience for us.”
The AWS Generative AI Spotlight program in APJ is in collaboration with venture capital firms and organizations in Australia including Stone & Chalk and Build Club.
Annie Liao, founder of Build Club, a home for top AI builders, engineers and founders and program partner, said: “In such a fast-changing sector as generative AI, AWS’s support of early-stage local startups through flagship programs like AWS Activate and Generative AI Spotlight, as well as its ongoing instrumental partnerships with broader ecosystem initiatives like Build Club, plays a critical role in enabling nascent businesses to strengthen their technology and go-to-market approach when it matters most.”
Chris Kirk, CEO of Stone & Chalk Group, a leading innovation startup and scaleup hub and program partner, said: “The AWS Generative AI Spotlight program provided an incredible opportunity for some of Australia and New Zealand’s most promising Gen AI companies to access expertise and support to build, launch and successfully scale their propositions. This year there has been an explosion in generative AI-powered innovators seeking to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges and it is great to have companies like AWS continuing to lean in to support this next wave. Australia is rapidly developing a vibrant cluster of Gen AI-enabled businesses and programs which has already resulted in the creation of numerous startups, spin outs and commercial opportunities for scaleups across the Stone & Chalk network.”
John Kearney, Head of Startups, Amazon Web Services Australia and New Zealand, said: “We’ve had an overwhelming amount of interest in our local Generative AI Spotlight program and have had to nearly double our participant number from 25 to 46, underscoring the exponential growth and momentum in the generative AI startup space in Australia and New Zealand. During the four-week program, we were introduced to some really amazing founders with big ideas, and helped them accelerate their understanding of generative AI services from AWS, as well as provided them access to business and technical expertise from industry experts.
“Many founders were also appreciative to understand how they can work more closely with AWS on their go-to-market approach, creating pathways to support future growth and scale. A big shoutout to our program partners, Stone & Chalk and Build Club, who were critical to the success of the Spotlight program. For over 18 years, AWS has empowered more startups to build, launch, and scale their businesses than any other cloud provider. It’s no coincidence that 96% of AI/ML unicorns run on AWS. It’s still early days and we remain committed to nurturing the next wave of startup innovation in generative AI locally and around the world.”
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