Today, Google announced that they will be offering startups that are affiliated with one of 50 global accelerator programs, incubators, and VC funds $100,000 in Cloud Platform credits for one year so that emerging businesses can host their applications on the software giant's servers at no cost.

1871 is one of the program's first partners - joining Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars, amongst others - and only members that are less than five years old and have less than $500,000 in annual revenue are eligible. The program is part of the Google's Cloud Platform for Startups initiative, which was set up to steer emerging entrepreneurs away from competing service providers, such as AWS and Azure.

“This offer supports our core Google Cloud Platform philosophy: we want developers to focus on code; not worry about managing infrastructure,” Google’s Julie Pearl wrote on the company's blog. “Starting today, startups can take advantage of this offer and begin using the same infrastructure platform we use at Google.”

On top of the credits, 1871 members will also be able to schedule office hours for 1:1 technical architecture reviews.

Though a couple sources in the industry are labeling the offer as a "bit of a marketing gimmick" - most startups won't come close to hitting the $100k threshold in a year - it's still another major offering that 1871 can add to its list of member benefits.

Google did mention that they will continue to add more partners to this program over time.