Zoom launches equity-free AI grant programme offering startups up to $150,000 in credits
Zoom Communications has launched AI Launchpad, a grant programme that gives eligible startups up to $150,000 in Zoom AI Services credits to build AI-native applications, without taking any equity.
The programme is aimed at a common problem for AI startups. Many have to combine several expensive third-party providers to handle speech, language, and decision-making in their products. AI Launchpad offers one platform for all of these, built on the same AI technology Zoom uses in its own products.
“AI startups should spend time solving real problems, not stitching together infrastructure,” said X.D. Huang, Chief Technology Officer at Zoom. “AI Launchpad gives founders the same industry-leading AI technology that powers our own products, plus resources to move faster and focus their engineering talent where it matters most.”
AI Launchpad runs on Zoom AI Services, which gives developers access to Zoom’s AI capabilities through standalone APIs. These cover speech recognition, summarisation, translation, voice AI, and decision intelligence.
According to Zoom, startups could use the APIs to build:
- Voice AI and customer service agents that understand spoken requests and respond naturally
- Conversation intelligence tools that transcribe and summarise calls and meetings
- Multilingual products that help people communicate across languages
- Automated workflows that use Zoom’s Decisions API to analyse information, sort requests, and decide what to do next
AI Launchpad has three tiers, based on a startup’s stage, technical needs, and eligibility. Credits last for up to 12 months. Participants may also get engineering guidance, a chance to showcase their products through Zoom’s developer channels, and introductions to potential enterprise customers.
The programme is open to startups building software with speech, language, or conversational AI at its core. Zoom will judge applicants on their product, team, technical approach, traction, and plans to build with Zoom AI Services.
Applications are open now and will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only a limited number of startups will be accepted.
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