Google Cloud announced on Tuesday a wide-ranging set of partnerships to attract Web3 startups to its cloud computing platform.
Expanding upon Google for Startups Cloud, an existing initiative that provides startups free credits to use the tech behemoths servers, among other perks, the new program will include specific benefits for emerging Web3 companies.
These include access to a set of grants from Aptos, Celo, Flow, the HBAR Foundation, Near, and the Solana Foundation, all of which have separately offered up $1 millionfor a total of $6 millionto support Web3 startups building on Google Cloud. Nansen, a blockchain data analytics firm, has also pitched in, offering discounts to startups on its analytics products. And Alchemy, a Web3 developer platform, will provide members credits to the platforms suite of services, mentorship, and priority access to its Web3 bootcamp.
Our new benefits give Web3 projects and startups the technology, community, and resources that they need to focus on innovation over infrastructure, James Tromans, Google Clouds Web3 engineering director, and Ryan Kiskis, director of Google Clouds Startup Ecosystem, wrote in a post announcing the new effort.
Other perks include early access to Google Clouds Web3 products as well as priority review for Coinbases Base Ecosystem Fund, which supports projects planning to build on Base, the companys recently announced layer-2 blockchain.
From their perspective maybe its a low risk one, Andrew Thurman, a spokesperson for Nansen, told Fortune in reference to Google Clouds Web3 startup program. Theyre offering free Google Cloud Credits and really just organizing as a nexus for many of these services and protocols. But its sort of undeniable that this is one of the bolder steps theyve taken into the blockchain space.
The program builds on more than a year of momentum from Googles cloud computing arm as it looks to edge out Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, the other two titans of cloud computing, in attracting a growing field of Web3 developers to Googles servers.
While Google Cloud took its first public step into Web3 in 2018 when it added datasets for Bitcoin and eventually other blockchains into BigQuery, a method for developers to ping large databases, it accelerated its Web3 strategy when it announced the creation of its own dedicated digital assets and Web3 engineering teams in 2022.
Since then, the cloud computing giant has announced a near-constant stream of partnerships with prominent crypto firms and blockchains, including Coinbase, BNB Chain, Celo, and Casper Labs.
It has also offered up its servers as validators, or computers that help secure and maintain blockchains, for the Sky Mavis, Solana, and Tezos blockchains.
And in October, it unveiled the Blockchain Node Engine, a streamlined method for developers to access and use blockchains on Googles servers.
Googles partnership is crucial in realizing Web3s potential, Mo Shaikh, cofounder and CEO of Aptos Labs, said in a statement to Fortune.
