Bekker's Blog

Blog archive

Microsoft Donates Azure Credits to Y Combinator Companies

In a shrewd attempt to get the next runaway success Silicon Valley startup onto the Azure cloud platform, Microsoft is giving away bucketloads of Azure credits to Y Combinator's current class.

Positioning the move as part of Microsoft's long commitment to startups, Microsoft Chief Evangelist Steve Guggenheimer blogged this week, "In this pursuit, Microsoft will provide Y Combinator's current class access to Microsoft Azure and a broad suite of Microsoft technology, as well as support. This will include $500,000 in Microsoft Azure credit, three years of Office 365, as well as direct access to Microsoft's engineering teams -- for Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch of startups."

Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, separately blogged, "This is a big deal for many startups -- it's common for hosting to be the second largest expense after salaries."

Altman said Microsoft's donations also include a year of free enterprise services from CloudFlare and DataStax.

"This brings the total value of special offers extended to each YC company to well over $1,000,000," Altman wrote. "The relentless nagging from partners to grow faster we throw in for free."

Among the 700 startups funded by Y Combinator since 2005 are reddit, Dropbox, Docker, Airbnb, Coinbase and Codeacademy.

Posted by Scott Bekker on February 10, 2015 at 1:40 PM


Featured

  • Business Connectivity Services Ending for Microsoft 365

    Microsoft plans to block Business Connectivity Services used by Microsoft 365 customers next year, steering them to Power Apps instead.

  • Microsoft Mesh for Teams Coming in October Preview

    A public preview of Microsoft Mesh for Microsoft Teams will arrive next month.

  • Azure Database for MariaDB Ending in 2025

    Microsoft will "retire" its Azure Database for MariaDB service on Sept. 19, 2025.

  • Orgs Now Getting the New Outlook for Windows

    The new Outlook for Windows 11 app is now at the "general availability" release stage for personal users, but it's also "enterprise ready."