Claude for Startups expands: free Team year + $1,000 API credits
The founder program now runs a year of Team free with $1K credits; VC-backed teams can stack $100K more, and Copilot purges six models Oct 19.
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What you get, and who qualifies
Approved startups get one year of Claude Team free — up to 5 Premium seats, new members only — plus a one-time $1,000 in API credits. Eligibility is broad: founded in the last 5 years or funded in the last 2, with bootstrapped, pre-seed, and VC-backed teams all in.
VC-backed? Stack up to $100K more
On top of a $45K Claude Startup Stack of partner offers, founders with an Anthropic partner VC can claim up to $100K in extra API credits through that firm. For token-hungry agent prototypes, that's months of runway before you spend a dollar.
Mark Oct 19: Copilot retires six models
Separate but worth a calendar note — GitHub Copilot drops GPT-5.5, GPT-5.4, GPT-5.4 mini, GPT-5 mini, Gemini 3.7 Flash, and Grok 4.5 on Oct 19. They auto-map to GPT-5.6 Sol/Luna, Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Grok 4.6, but any pinned model IDs in your scripts or CI need updating first.