Together AI Startup Accelerator - Up to $50,000
Source: https://www.together.ai/startup-accelerator
Description
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+ 1 Together AI offers a selection-based accelerator program providing up to $50,000 in free platform credits for AI-native startups. Credits cover serverless inference, fine-tuning, dedicated endpoints, and instant GPU clusters. The program is structured into three funding-based tiers (Build, Grow, Scale) and includes dedicated AI engineering support, go-to-market amplification, exclusive founder events, and VC network access. This is not a self-serve signup — you apply and Together AI's team reviews your application.
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+ 7 The accelerator is split into three tiers based on how much funding your startup has raised:
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+ 9 TierFunding StagePlatform CreditsEngineering Hours
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+ 10 BuildUp to $5M raisedUp to $15,0003 hours
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+ 11 Grow$5M–$10M raisedUp to $30,0006 hours
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+ 12 ScaleOver $10M raisedUp to $50,00010 hours
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+ 13
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+ 14 Important: Credits exclude Reserved GPU Clusters. They can be used for serverless inference, fine-tuning, dedicated endpoints, and instant clusters.
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+ 21 Free credits to use across Together AI's core products:
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+ 22 • Serverless Inference — pay-per-token access to 200+ open-source models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, and more) via an OpenAI-compatible API
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+ 23 • Fine-Tuning — supervised fine-tuning and DPO (Direct Preference Optimization) with LoRA on models like DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3, Llama, and others. You own the resulting model 100%
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+ 24 • Dedicated Endpoints — single-tenant GPU instances (H100, H200) for consistent performance without shared compute. Per-minute billing, starting around $2.10–$4.99/hour depending on hardware
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+ 25 • Instant GPU Clusters — on-demand clusters with Kubernetes or Slurm, InfiniBand networking, for large-scale training or inference
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+ 26
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+ 28 Dedicated time with Together AI engineers who help you:
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+ 29 • Optimize your model architecture and inference stack
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+ 30 • Address performance bottlenecks
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+ 31 • Set up fine-tuning pipelines and evaluation workflows
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+ 32 • Implement best practices for benchmarking
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+ 33
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+ 35 • Marketing amplification and co-selling opportunities to Together AI's 1M+ developer network
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+ 36 • Joint case studies, blog features, and event participation
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+ 37
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+ 39 • Exclusive founder events with AI researchers (including notable figures like Tri Dao and Percy Liang)
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+ 40 • Introductions to Together AI's network of venture capital partners
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+ 41 • Peer networking with other accelerator cohort members
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+ 47 Together AI provides access to 200+ open-source models. Key models include:
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+ 48
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+ 49 CategoryNotable Models
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+ 50 Large Language ModelsLlama 4 Scout/Maverick, Llama 3.3 70B, DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3, Qwen 2.5 (various sizes), Mistral, Kimi K2
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+ 51 Code ModelsQwen 2.5 Coder, DeepSeek Coder
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+ 52 Vision ModelsLlama 3.2 Vision, Qwen-VL
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+ 53 Image GenerationFLUX (various versions)
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+ 54 Embeddings & RerankingVarious embedding and rerank models
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+ 55
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+ 56 All endpoints are OpenAI-compatible, so you can swap in Together AI with minimal code changes if you are already using OpenAI's API format.
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+ 62 • AI-native startups building applications (not infrastructure or research-only projects)
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+ 63 • Selection is based on funding stage, customer adoption, technical requirements, and alignment with open-source AI development
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+ 64 • The application asks for: company fundamentals, funding history, customer metrics, GPU requirements, deployment timeline, current cloud providers, model architectures in use, monthly GPU spending, and specific use cases
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+ 65 • No specific geographic restrictions mentioned — the program appears to be global
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+ 66 • No credit card or payment required to apply
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+ 71
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+ 72 1. Go to together.ai/startup-accelerator
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+ 73 2. Fill out the application form with your startup details (company info, funding stage, tech stack, use case)
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+ 74 3. Together AI's team reviews your application — no public timeline is given for review turnaround
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+ 75 4. If accepted, you are placed into the appropriate tier (Build, Grow, or Scale) based on your funding level
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+ 76 5. Credits are provisioned to your Together AI account and engineering hours are scheduled
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+ 77
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+ 78 Note: This is a rolling application — there are no fixed cohort deadlines mentioned. Startups like Corridor.dev and PlayerZero are already part of the program.
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+ 84 • Credits do not cover Reserved GPU Clusters (only Instant Clusters are included)
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+ 85 • Together AI's general platform requires a minimum $5 credit purchase to unlock full API access (Build Tier 1). It is unclear whether accelerator credits bypass this requirement — ask during the application process
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+ 86 • No free trial exists on the general platform outside of this program
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+ 87 • Credits are likely time-limited (specific expiration terms are set during onboarding)
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+ 92
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+ 93 To give you a sense of what the credits are worth in practice:
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+ 94
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+ 95 Use CaseApproximate Cost$15K Credits Gets You
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+ 96 Llama 3.3 70B inference~$0.88/M tokens (input+output)~17 billion tokens
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+ 97 DeepSeek-R1 inference~$3.50/M tokens (input)~4.3 billion input tokens
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+ 98 Fine-tuning (Llama 70B)~$2.90/M tokens~5.2 billion training tokens
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+ 99 Dedicated Endpoint (H100)~$2.99/hour~5,000 GPU-hours
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+ 100 Image Generation (FLUX)~$0.03/image~500,000 images
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+ 101
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+ 102 These are rough estimates — actual costs depend on model, batch size, and usage pattern.
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+ 105
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+ 107
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+ 108 • Together AI Research Credits Program — small grants for students conducting independent research projects. Apply at together.ai/forms/research-credits-program-request
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+ 109 • Together Fund AI Studio — a separate VC-backed program (together.fund, not together.ai) offering up to $600K in credits across multiple cloud providers. 12-week cohort program with a different application process
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+ 110 • Promotional Credits — Together AI occasionally runs promotional campaigns (e.g., $100 free credits on signup), but these are not always active
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+ 115
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+ 116 • Not a traditional accelerator — Together AI does not take equity or require you to join a cohort in person. It is essentially a credits + support program branded as an accelerator
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+ 117 • Open-source focus — the platform specializes in open-source models. If you need proprietary models (GPT-4, Claude, etc.), this program does not cover them
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+ 118 • Compare with alternatives — AWS Generative AI Accelerator, Google for Startups Cloud Program, and Microsoft for Startups also offer substantial credits. Together AI's advantage is competitive pricing on open-source model inference (up to 11x cheaper than GPT-4o for equivalent workloads)
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+ 119 • Engineering hours are valuable — the forward-deployed engineering time is arguably the most unique benefit. Use it to optimize your most critical inference or fine-tuning workloads
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+ 120 • SOC 2 and HIPAA compliant — if your startup handles sensitive data, Together AI supports compliant deployments including private VPC options
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+ 123
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+ 124 Sources:
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+ 125 • Together AI Startup Accelerator
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+ 126 • Announcing the Together AI Startup Accelerator (Blog)
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+ 127 • Together AI Pricing
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+ 128 • Together AI Products
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+ 129 • Together AI Billing & Usage Limits
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+ 130 • Together AI Research Credits Program
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