Google Cloud courts startups, partners with VC firms
Cloud
Google Cloud is courting startups even as it grows via large enterprise accounts and an industry strategy that revolves around analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
With its first-ever Google Cloud Startup Summit, the company is looking to share best practices, business models and industry-specific approaches with young companies. Google Cloud is also launching new resources and services to mentor and provide support to startups. The headliner of the event is Astro Teller, Google X's Captain of Moonshots, who will talk about creating a moonshot factory.
Ryan Kiskis, director for the startup unit at Google Cloud, said the cloud provider is supporting customers across 128 countries with startups focused on digital banking, travel, healthcare and media. While Google Cloud has invested heavily to court enterprise customers, startups are just as important, said Kiskis.
"There has been a lot of great work for enterprises, but the startups being formed today will be enterprise cusotmers less than a decade from now," he said. In addition, startups are more likely to adopt new Google Cloud products and services and push product development forward as they look to disrupt incumbents," added Kiskis.
Google Cloud said that Orca Security and Nylas are new startups added to its program and can become larger companies over time. After all, customers like Etsy and Snapchat were startups at one point.
For technology providers, courting startups is a key task since some of these companies emerge to be giants. Palantir recently launched a program for startups and most enterprise technology players see fast-moving startups as a key audience.
Among the new Google Cloud resources for startups:
- Partnerships with venture capital firms including North Star, Greylock and Sapphire Ventures. Under the partnerships, VC firms and Google Cloud will develop business plans, content and programming for startups.
- A Startup Success Team of cloud and customer experience experts around the world to mentor startups.
- A Customer to Customer (C2C) platform to serve as a community for startups to share knowledge. The C2C platform is in private preview.
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