Amazon hopes to jump start its AI coding tool Kiro by giving it away to startups | TechCrunch

Is there any way for another AI coding tool to worm it’s 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.