Google for Startups has added BUDETO to its partner incubators. On top of our money and the work we do inside every company, the startups we build can now get support from Google itself: $25k to $350k in cloud credits, Google Workspace, training and a direct line to Google's startup team. Google's part is free. It doesn't cost founders any equity.
Small problem: we're not an incubator
We're a startup studio. An incubator gives you a desk, advice and a programme, and you still bring the idea, the team and the money. We start earlier than that. We bring the idea, help put the founding team together, invest the first money, and then stay in the company as the co-founder nobody sees.
Google's system doesn't have a box for "co-founder nobody sees" yet. It has one for incubators. So we'll take it. What matters is what it unlocks for the founders.
What the companies we build get
Two layers. What BUDETO brings is an investment, in exchange for equity. What Google brings sits on top of it, and it's free.
From Google, on top
Free, no equity
- $25k to $350k in cloud credits
- Google Workspace
- Maps credits
- Training
- Google's startup team
From BUDETO
An investment, for equity
- The idea
- The co-founders
- The first money
- The investors
- Someone who stays
Google's part in a bit more detail:
- $25k in Google Cloud credits to start. Enough to run a product through its first months without paying for infrastructure.
- Up to $350k once they raise. When a company closes a serious round, $500k or more, the credits grow with it, spread over two years.
- Google Workspace, free for a year. Email, docs and calendar from day one, on the company's own domain.
- Google Maps Platform credits, for anything built on maps and location.
- Training through Google Cloud Skills Boost.
- A direct line to Google's startup team, for technical questions and for the moments when you need someone who knows how Google works from the inside.
Why it matters at day zero
The first year of a company is a race between learning and running out of money. Every dollar that doesn't go to servers goes to the things that decide whether the company lives: talking to customers, shipping the next version, surviving the quiet months before anyone else believes you.
For AI products it matters even more. Compute is the new rent: model calls, databases, hosting, logs. A prototype that costs nothing on a laptop can cost thousands a month the week real users show up. Credits move that bill out of the most fragile months of the company's life.
Credits are not a business model
Here's the part that never makes the press release. Free credits make teams careless. The classic story goes like this: a startup builds everything as if compute were free, grows on credits for a year, then the credits end and the cloud bill is bigger than the revenue.
So these are the rules we give our founders.
1. Price the product as if you paid full price
Know your real cost per customer from day one, credits or not. If the unit economics only work on free compute, they don't work.
2. Watch the burn even when it's zero
Set budgets and alerts in the console anyway. The habit is worth more than the money.
3. Don't pick a stack because it's free
Pick it because it's right for the product. Credits run out. A migration takes months.
4. Know your cliff date
Write down the month the credits end. Your runway plan should already know about it.
Thank you
This happened because a few people at Google for Startups decided to back founders in Czechia and across the CEE region, and to back us with them. Thank you to Michal Kramarz, Edyta Bryk and Martin Svoboda for making it happen, and for the support that keeps coming.
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If you have the drive but not the idea, the team or the first money, that's exactly what we bring. Now with some Google on top. Co-found with us.