HELSINKI, Finland — August 24, 2023 — Aiven, the open source cloud data platform for everyone, today announced the launch of its enhanced Cluster startup program, reaffirming its commitment to supporting and empowering early-stage companies on their path to success. The revised program aims to be more inclusive and accessible by expanding the eligibility criteria, introducing a lower credit tier accessible to a wider range of startups, and expanding the ecosystem of partners among venture capital (VC) firms and accelerators across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions.

The Cluster program was first introduced in November 2021 and it has achieved remarkable success with notable graduates such as Hookdeck, Huuva, and 4.screen. Based on feedback from graduates of the initial program and aspiring participants, Aiven has updated the program to increase its impact and to make it more accessible to fast-growing early-stage startups worldwide.

“The Cluster program has been instrumental in our progress this year,” says Christoph Mahlert, co-founder and CTO of 4screen. “Aiven's support and technologies have allowed us to focus on our core business, confidently knowing that we have a reliable partner to manage our data infrastructure. The accessibility and inclusivity of the revised program will undoubtedly bring the same level of success to countless other startups like ours."

According to Tiina Romu, Software Team Lead at Huuva, “being part of the Cluster program has given us the freedom to choose the tools we want from the start, without worrying about the actual cost of these services, or how much time maintaining them would take. So we feel that this is really helping us move forward and grow.”

The revised program includes the following changes:

• Eligibility: startups that have fundraised up to and including Series B are eligible to apply, replacing the previous requirement of funding up to Series A only.
• Age criteria: the program now accepts startups that are a maximum of seven years old, expanding from the previous age limit of five years.
• Credit distribution: we will continue to distribute up to $100,000 in credits through our startup ecosystem partners, which include VC firms, accelerators, and incubators.
• New tier: we have introduced a new $12,000 tier specifically tailored for startups not affiliated with our partners. This new tier allows them to access the program resources and support.

The Cluster program also enables the expansion of Aiven’s startup ecosystem partner network across the world, offering their portfolio companies access to exclusive perks and Aiven benefits. The list of new partners in the revamped program includes Techstars (global), Liquid2 Ventures (USA), RevRoad (USA), Underline Ventures (Romania), HV Capital (Germany), Icebreaker (Finland), Project A (Germany), ISAI (France), Digital Well Incubator (Sweden), MMC (UK), Hummingbird VC (UK), Karma Ventures (Estonia), Target Global (Germany), Chemovator (Germany), GoGrow (Singapore) and the Singapore Management University (SMU).

“The startup community has supported us on our journey since our inception,” said Oskari Saarenmaa, CEO and co-founder of Aiven. “To reciprocate the goodwill we received when we first started out, we wish to power the transformative technologies of even more early-stage companies.”

For more information on the Cluster Startup Program, its benefits, and how to apply, please visit https://aiven.io/cluster.

Aiven will also be participating at the Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco and will be sharing more information about the Cluster program at the Startup Lounge on Wednesday, August 30, 2023.

Additional resources:

Find out how recent graduates of the Cluster Program - Huuva and 4.Screen have benefited and read more about their journey below:

1. Huuva - a Finnish cloud kitchen startup
2. 4.Screen - a fast-growing German startup, building the world’s first driver interaction platform
   

About Aiven

Headquartered in Helsinki and with hubs in Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Toronto, Aiven provides managed open source data technologies, such as PostgreSQL®, Apache Kafka® and OpenSearch®, on all major clouds. Through Aiven, developers can do what they do best: create applications. Meanwhile, Aiven does what they do best: manage cloud data infrastructure. Aiven enables customers to drive business results from open source data technologies that trigger true transformations on a global scale.

To learn more about Aiven, visit aiven.io and follow @aiven_io on Twitter.

Media Contacts

press@aiven.io