Is there any way for another AI coding tool to 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 wants to try using the tried-and-true method of giving its tool away for free.
The cloud giant says it will grant qualified early-stage startups a free year of credits to its competitor, Kiro Pro+, AWS CEO Matt Garman announced during his keynote speech at the re:Invent 2025 conference. These startups can request free credits for up to 100 users.
But there are restrictions. Only startups that have secured VC funding ranging from pre-seed to Series B funding are eligible. U.S.-based startups are eligible, but the offer is not available in every country. Geographic restrictions include France, Germany, and Italy, much of South America, and, naturally, trade-sanctioned countries. In addition, applications must be received by December 31.
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Original Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/03/amazon-hopes-to-jump-start-its-ai-coding-tool-kiro-by-giving-it-away-to-startups/
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