Four grand prize winners will be selected in enterprise and consumer
categories from start-ups with the most innovative businesses built on
the AWS cloud
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 14, 2012--
Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN),
today announced the call for entries to the sixth AWS Global Start-Up
Challenge, a contest to recognize innovative start-ups that are built on
AWS’s cloud computing platform. This year, AWS will select four grand
prize winners – one from each of the following categories: Big Data &
High Performance Computing; Gaming; Consumer Applications; and Business
Applications. Each grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 in cash,
$50,000 in AWS credits, AWS Support services at the Business-level tier
for one year, and technical mentorship from AWS.
AWS Global Start-Up Challenge entries will be judged on their
implementation and integration of AWS services, originality and
creativity of the business, likelihood of long-term success and
scalability, and how well the business addresses a need in the
marketplace. Entries must be received no later than November 9, 2012.
Semi-finalists will be announced in early December and finalists will be
announced in early January, and invited to attend the AWS Global
Start-Up Challenge event later in January in San Francisco, CA, where
they will present their businesses to a panel of AWS executives, venture
capitalists and an audience of technology industry leaders. To learn
more about the AWS Global Start-Up Challenge, visit http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge.
“By allowing companies to deploy technology infrastructure with no
capital expense and low pay-as-you-go pricing, and providing a
technology platform with very broad functionality and a global footprint
of datacenters, AWS is helping start-ups from around the world do what
has traditionally been cost prohibitive in the past – start a company
with worldwide customers on a shoestring budget and see whether you have
something meaningful,” said Adam Selipsky, Vice President, Amazon Web
Services. “From Brazil to Japan, Europe to Australia, the Congo to the
United States, start-ups are putting their ideas to work and innovating
quickly to get to market faster and compete on a global scale. We’re
looking forward to this year’s Challenge and seeing the types of dynamic
new businesses around the world who are leveraging AWS.”
Fantasy Shopper (based in Exeter, UK) was last year’s grand prize winner
of the AWS Start-Up Challenge and was the first non-US based company to
win the contest with their social game platform focused around
real-world apparel. In this community application, shoppers browse
actual selections from top stores in fashion centers such as London,
make virtual purchases to create their own outfits, share their
creations with others, and can even purchase the actual apparel items
offline.
“AWS provides an opportunity to start-ups that simply didn’t exist a few
years ago. Today, it’s possible to build a platform that can scale
globally with minimal cost and genuinely compete with the biggest
companies. This opportunity enables entrepreneurs to dream big and that
is a great thing,” said Fantasy Shopper Co-Founder and CEO Chris
Prescott. “Winning the AWS Start-Up Challenge was a fantastic moment for
our team and a real vote of confidence to our platform and business
model. The prize money and AWS credits helped immensely and furthermore,
the competition helped us gain the attention of some of the world’s
largest VC’s who chose to take part in our first round of funding in
January this year. The accolade of becoming the first non-US based
company to win also helped to further strengthen our credibility in the
US and that helped us gain introductions to some very high profile
individuals. If you’re thinking of applying, we would absolutely
recommend that you do!”
“Booshaka was selected as a finalist in the Start-Up Challenge last year
and since then, over 150,000 brands and businesses have chosen Booshaka
as the social marketing solution to help them understand and engage
their fans, and amplify their activity,” said Erik Ober, CEO, Booshaka.
“From day one, we needed to architect and build a platform that scaled
to the size of Facebook and Twitter. We utilized the full breadth of
Amazon’s Web Services to build a scalable, high-performance and low-cost
big data solution. Last month, we analyzed 20 billion social
interactions on Facebook and we did this for an incredible $0.025 cents
per user.”
“Since being a finalist in last year’s Start-Up Challenge we’ve
experienced tremendous growth. We are currently processing more than 500
million data points every day, and because our business is built
entirely on AWS, we’re able to process this data in real-time in a
highly scalable and cost-efficient environment,” said Raj Aggarwal, CEO,
Localytics. “Localytics is helping tens of thousands of mobile
application publishers better understand their customers and make their
applications more successful and profitable. AWS is critical to scaling
our infrastructure to handle our explosive growth and to meeting our
customers’ needs.”
Eligible contestants must have generated no more than $10 million in
gross annual revenues and no more than $10 million in outside funding.
Start-ups submitted for the contest must use the cloud computing
solutions offered by AWS, such as Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon
EC2), Amazon DynamoDB, or Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). A
complete description of the prizes and contest Official Rules can be
found at http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge.
About Amazon Web Services
Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) began exposing key
infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now
widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud
computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and
turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no
longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or
months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazon’s
expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business
needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon
Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost
infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands
of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190
countries around the world. AWS offers over 28 different services,
including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple
Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service
(Amazon RDS). AWS services are available to customers from data center
locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan and Singapore.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the most-advanced e-reader ever
constructed with 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented
built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, extra-long
battery life, and a thin and light design. The new latest generation
Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, now features new, improved
fonts and faster page turns. Kindle Fire HD features a stunning custom
high-definition display, exclusive Dolby audio with dual stereo
speakers, high-end, laptop-grade Wi-Fi with dual-band support and
dual-antennas/MIMO for 40% faster throughput than other tablets, enough
storage for HD content, and the latest generation processor and graphics
engine—and it is available in two display sizes—7” and 8.9”. The all-new
Kindle Fire features a faster processor for 40% faster performance,
twice the memory, and longer battery life.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
and www.amazon.es.
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption,
inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
Source: Amazon Web Services LLC
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
www.amazon.com/pr
