Viam for Startups | Build Your Robot Startup on Viam
Viam for Startups
Build your robot startup on Viam.
Viam for Startups helps early-stage robotics and hardware companies build and scale on Viam without infrastructure cost being a barrier.
Viam is built for software engineers building for the physical world. Write in languages you know. Connect any hardware. Prototype fast. Scale without a rewrite.
Benefits
$30,000 in platform credits
Don't burn your seed round on infrastructure. Credits are distributed as $2,500/month over 12 months — covering your machines, data sync, and fleet management from day one through your first year.
Dedicated time with Viam Engineers
Scheduled time with the engineers who built the platform. Bring your architecture questions, your roadmap, your hardest technical decisions. Proactive help, not reactive support.
Direct access to Viam's Forward Deployed Engineering team via Slack
Not a ticket queue. Not a chatbot. We set up a shared Slack channel so you're always one message away from someone who can actually help.
Eligibility Criteria
To qualify for the Viam for Startups program, companies must meet all of the following requirements:
- Building a robotics or hardware-focused product or service
- Series C or earlier stage
- Founded within the last five years
- Have a valid website and business email address
- Not currently a Viam enterprise customer under contract
- Have not previously participated in the program
Meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee acceptance. Viam may approve, deny, suspend, or remove participants from the program in its sole discretion.
Most stacks break between 1 and 10 machines. Viam doesn't.
Your prototype code runs your fleet. No rewrites, no migrations, no rebuilding at scale.
- Prototype: Idea → demo in days. No custom infrastructure.
- Pilot: 1 → 50 machines. Same config, no rewrite.
- Fleet: 50+ machines. OTA updates, monitoring, and rollbacks built in.
Built on Viam. Shipping in the real world.
Cut time-to-market by 50%. Deploy software updates 90% faster. Scaled from prototypes to thousands of robots, without rebuilding the stack.
Built a multimodal AI cooking assistant from scratch — and shipped it — without a traditional robotics engineer on the founding team.
Shipped an AI-powered grill in under a year while the Viam platform handled authentication, OTA updates, model deployment, and data pipelines.
UBS Arena built an AI-powered fan experience feature in 10 days using existing cameras and no new hardware.
Open source. No black boxes.
The core RDK is open source on GitHub. No black boxes, no vendor lock-in. Use the Viam Registry for instant access to drivers and ML models, and keep your proprietary logic private.
The Startup Stack: Custom vs. Viam
| Feature | The Custom Headache | Viam |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware Integration | Hunting for 5-year-old GitHub repos and debugging C++ build errors for every sensor. | JSON config. Declare your hardware, pull the driver from the Registry, and start coding. |
| AI/ML Deployment | Fighting CUDA drivers and "library hell" on the edge just to get a model to run. | Deploy PyTorch/TF models with a toggle. Call inference via a clean API. |
| OTA Updates | "The Golden SD Card" or brittle Ansible scripts. Praying the update doesn't brick the unit. | Push updates to one robot or the whole fleet. One-click rollbacks if things go sideways. |
Stop managing plumbing. Start building robots.
Create your free account and get your first machine online in minutes.
FAQ
Q: How do I apply?
Q: Does it cost anything to get started?
Q: How do the $30,000 in credits actually work?
Q: What is the eligibility criteria?
Q: What if I’m using custom or niche hardware?
Q: Can I use Viam if I already have a stack built on ROS?
Q: What happens if my robot loses Wi-Fi or LTE?
Q: What is the latency overhead of the Viam RDK?
Q: Is my proprietary logic and data secure?
Additional Terms:
Credits are promotional credits only. They are not cash, stored value, gift cards, or prepaid services, and are not refundable, transferable, assignable, redeemable, or exchangeable for cash or other value.
Viam may approve, deny, suspend, or remove participants from the program in its sole discretion, and Viam may modify, suspend, cancel, or terminate the program in its entirety without notice to you.
Participation in the program and use of Viam services are subject to Viam’s applicable standard terms and policies, including Viam’s terms of service, privacy policy, acceptable use requirements, and any service-specific terms.