Category: Startup

After a week-long kickoff in Seattle, founders bonded through their virtual community, participating in weekly workshops and one-on-one technical and business trainings in partnership with a personally curated mentor. In December, the founders came together again at the AWS Startup Loft in San Francisco to prepare their final pitches to a diverse group of 41 investors from 31 firms.

Check out the video to get a look at the fun, and learn about all the AWS Impact Accelerator opportunities currently available to startups through AWS.

syniotec’s pivot wasn’t only a transformation on the business side—it also meant a complete overhaul of the technical infrastructure that powered their product. The company’s original rental facilitator idea could have been served by monolith architecture. But as they transformed their business and began offering a far wider variety of services to their customers, syniotec recognized the need to switch to a microservices architecture that could offer greater agility and scalability.

Today, AWS launched applications for the next cohort—Latino Founders. Applications are open to founders located in the US and Latin American countries, as long as their startup is incorporated in the US. Interested in applying? Applications are open March 6 – March 17, 2023, with limited space available. Read on to find out how to submit your application.

When you think of startup culture, stories of meteoric successes leap to mind. But for every high-flying unicorn, you may be reminded of the risks and failures also associated with startup culture. Founders know that with success comes detractors, but how can you manage your own self-confidence and sort criticism from feedback? Identifying, and more importantly, managing your approach to criticism is key in maintaining positive mindsets and positive culture within a startup.

To celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re featuring posts throughout the month that highlight women in technology who are building and creating. Meet Jill Stelfox. Jill is a serial founder and entrepreneur, holds multiple patents, and is the chief executive officer (CEO) and executive chair of Panzura. Panzura’s award-winning CloudFS global file system gives the ability to access files from anywhere with visibility, security, and control.

“Evolutionary Architectures” is a four-part blog series that shows how solution designs and decisions evolve as companies go through the different stages of the startups lifecycle. In this series, we follow the aptly named Example Startup whose idea is to create a “fantasy stock market” application, similar to fantasy sports leagues. They envision holding four “tournaments” over the course of a year.

In part 2, we learn how Example Startup continues evolving their solutions to meet an increase in requirements and growth.

To celebrate the voices of Black employees at AWS and amplify their work’s impact, we are honored to share the stories of eight AWS employees working to advance Black entrepreneurs in ways that strengthen Black businesses and support economic growth in historically underserved Black communities.

New research commissioned by AWS shows that workplace culture is vital to a startup’s success. Six out of seven startup leaders (86%) believe a company’s culture contributes to its growth, with 85% saying it can play a critical role in securing investment and the same number saying it is an important factor in attracting new talent.

The AWS Startups Blog is excited to introduce Sevetri Wilson. Sevetri is a serial entrepreneur whose most recent startup, Resilia, enables nonprofits to increase capacity and funders to go beyond the grant with technical assistance, coaching, and capacity-building support. In October of 2022, Resilia closed a Series B $35M funding round, the largest raise ever for a solo Black female founded tech company.

In October 2022, Amazon launched its Catalytic Capital initiative, investing $150 million in funds to underrepresented entrepreneurs. Now, AWS is further accelerating the conversation through strategic partnerships and data-driven reporting with the publication of the State of Black Venture Report, launched Tuesday at the 2023 State of Black Venture event hosted by BLCK VC at the AWS Startup Loft in San Francisco, California.