Can a different AI coding tool worm its way into the hearts of startup founders — and past Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini Code Assist, GitHub Copilot, the many other AI-wrapped VSCode forks, and vibe-coding phenoms like Replit and Lovable? Amazon hopes to test, yet again, the old nostrum of giving away its tool for free.
The cloud giant would offer qualified early-stage startups a year’s worth of free credits to its rival, Kiro Pro+, AWS CEO Matt Garman announced Wednesday in his keynote at the re: Invent 2025 conference. These startups are then eligible to apply for free credits for 100 users.
But there are restrictions. Startups must have received VC funding from the pre-seed to Series B stage. Startups based in the U.S. can qualify, but not every country can redeem the offer. Geographically, the countries are France, Germany, Italy, most of South America, and all trade-sanctioned markets. Applications are also due on December 31.
