[metadata]
article:author: Brian Blumenfeld
article:published_time: 2026-09-16T16:00:00.000Z
color-scheme: dark
description: One application, one key, no accounts to juggle. $10,000 in LiveKit Cloud credits, a year of Cloud Scale, and inference credits to go with them.
og:description: One application, one key, no accounts to juggle. $10,000 in LiveKit Cloud credits, a year of Cloud Scale, and inference credits to go with them.
og:image: https://livekit.com/blog/introducing-livekit-startups/opengraph-image
og:image:alt: Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us
og:title: Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us
og:type: article
theme-color: #070707
twitter:card: summary_large_image
twitter:description: One application, one key, no accounts to juggle. $10,000 in LiveKit Cloud credits, a year of Cloud Scale, and inference credits to go with them.
twitter:image: https://livekit.com/blog/introducing-livekit-startups/opengraph-image
twitter:image:alt: Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us
twitter:title: Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us
viewport: width=device-width, initial-scale=1

[canonical-links]
https://livekit.com/blog/introducing-livekit-startups

[document-links]
/
/security
01.22.2026 LiveKit's Series C: towards the voice-driven era of computing Read: /blog/livekit-series-c
08.13.2026 How we handle Zero Data Retention (ZDR) in LiveKit Read: /blog/how-we-handle-zero-data-retention-in-livekit
08.13.2026 LiveKit’s stance on privacy and data Read: /blog/livekits-stance-on-privacy-and-data
369 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA: https://maps.google.com/?q=369+Sutter+St,+San+Francisco,+CA
About: /about
Agent platform: /products/agent-platform
Apply now: https://livekit.com/startups#form
Blog: /blog
Brand assets: /brand
Careers: /careers
Cloud dashboard: https://cloud.livekit.io
Codec bitrates: /webrtc/bitrate-guide
Coding agent support: https://docs.livekit.io/mcp
Community: https://community.livekit.io
Company: /about
Company: /blog/company
Connection test: /webrtc/connection-test
Contact sales: /contact-sales
Cookie Policy: /legal/cookie-policy
Documentation: https://docs.livekit.io/
LiveKit Cloud Scale: https://livekit.com/pricing
LiveKit Inference: https://docs.livekit.io/agents/models/inference/
LiveKit Startup Program: https://livekit.com/startups
LiveKit-hosted Gemma 4 31B: /products/inference/gemma-4
Media server: https://github.com/livekit/livekit
Open source: https://github.com/livekit/livekit/blob/master/LICENSE
Pricing: /pricing
Privacy Policy: /legal/privacy-policy
Products: /products/agent-platform
Resources: /blog
SDKs: https://docs.livekit.io/reference/
Security: /security
Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flivekit.com%2Fblog%2Fintroducing-livekit-startups
Share on X: https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=Introducing%20the%20LiveKit%20Startup%20Program%3A%20Your%20whole%20stack%2C%20on%20us&url=https%3A%2F%2Flivekit.com%2Fblog%2Fintroducing-livekit-startups
Start building: https://cloud.livekit.io
Startup Program: /startups
Terms of Service: /legal/terms-of-service
Terms of service: /legal/terms-of-service
Video codecs: /webrtc/codecs-guide
WebRTC browser test: /webrtc/browser-test
agents 14.3 K: https://github.com/livekit/agents
how LiveKit enforces zero data retention: https://livekit.com/blog/how-we-handle-zero-data-retention-in-livekit
https://github.com/livekit
https://livekit.com/join-slack
https://www.youtube.com/@livekit_io
https://x.com/livekit
inference rates: https://livekit.com/pricing/inference
livekit 21.1 K: https://github.com/livekit/livekit
livekit: https://github.com/livekit
program page: https://livekit.com/startups
program terms: https://livekit.com/legal/startup-terms-of-service
quickstart: https://docs.livekit.io/agents/start/voice-ai/
security-first, SOC 2 Type II compliant infrastructure: https://livekit.com/security

[structured-data]
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","logo":"https://livekit.com/images/livekit-apple-touch.png","name":"LiveKit","sameAs":["https://github.com/livekit","https://x.com/livekit","https://www.youtube.com/@livekit_io","https://www.linkedin.com/company/livekitco"],"url":"https://livekit.com"}

[content]
Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us | LiveKit
Skip to main content
Placeholder text for banner height reservation on mobile
Products
Resources
Company
Pricing
livekit
/
agents
14.3
K
agents
14.3
K
livekit
21.1
K
Contact sales
Start building
Blog
/
Company
Introducing the LiveKit Startup Program: Your whole stack, on us
Metadata
Date
09.16.2026
Author
BRIAN BLUMENFELD
Reading time
5
min read
Tags
COMPANY
Share on X
Share on LinkedIn
LiveKit lets you build an agent from scratch in about ten minutes. Simply run
lk agent init
, and the starter template gives you a working model stack with a single LiveKit API key.
But a working stack isn't necessarily ready to be customer-facing. Speech, language, and voice models all affect one another, and so does everything around them: turn detection, keyterm prompting, noise cancellation, and voice selection. None of this is fully captured in benchmarks; the best voice agents need to be tuned based on real conversations.
Experimentation, however, comes with overhead. Doing things right means that pretty soon you have multiple API keys in your
.env
, separate billing systems with different rates and limits, and several places to look when something breaks mid-demo, all of which slow down mature teams, let alone startups looking to get their first agents to market.
We built the
LiveKit Startup Program
to help early stage companies solve this problem.
The LiveKit Startup Program gives eligible startups $7,000 in inference credits across seven partners, $10,000 in LiveKit Cloud credits, and one year on the Scale plan (normally $500 per month) to ensure that early stage companies have the resources they need to build highly performant agents that feel enterprise-grade. All told, it adds up to about $23,000 in total value devoted to the most critical period of agent refinement.
One application gives access to the entire program. Models from participating partners are available through LiveKit Inference, with no separate provider accounts, API keys, or bills to manage. You can experiment across the stack while keeping the same integration, then take what works into production on LiveKit Cloud.
What you get
#
$6,000
One year of Cloud Scale
Hosted agents, observability, and telephony, with the $500/month fee waived.
$10,000
Additional Cloud credits
Headroom on top of everything the Scale plan already includes.
$7,000
Inference credits
†
LiveKit Gemma 4 31B, Deepgram, Inworld, Rime, Fish Audio, AssemblyAI, and Gradium, with more partners joining.
†
1,000 per provider, which can be spent across every model that provider offers in LiveKit Inference, including
LiveKit-hosted Gemma 4 31B
.
We're onboarding more inference partners across the real-time AI stack, and we'll keep adding credits to the program as they join it. Each pool of credits draws down on its own, and if one runs out, that service simply rolls over to standard rates so nothing in your agent stops working.
All inference credits are redeemable through
LiveKit Inference
with no separate accounts to create, applications to fill out, or provider keys to manage. Your models are strings in your agent config, and the corresponding program credits are applied automatically.
1
session
=
AgentSession
(
2
stt
=
"assemblyai/universal-3-5-pro:en"
,
3
llm
=
"google/gemma-4-31b-it"
,
4
tts
=
"inworld/inworld-tts-2:Ashley"
,
5
)
Try a different model by changing one string, without changing the rest of your agent.
One year of LiveKit Cloud Scale included
#
Once you've used your inference credits to find the right models, the program also covers the next step: putting them into production on
LiveKit Cloud Scale
(normally $500 per month). Beyond the plan's included usage, you also receive $10,000 in LiveKit Cloud credits, giving you room to grow before paying anything out of pocket.
Scale includes 50,000 agent session minutes per month, up to 600 concurrent agent sessions, region pinning, role-based access control, metrics export APIs, custom voices, and discounted
inference rates
for any provider not participating in the program.
Better yet, you don't have to rebuild the operational or security layer as you move from experimenting to production.
Everything runs on
security-first, SOC 2 Type II compliant infrastructure
. Zero data retention (ZDR) is enabled by default for every model in LiveKit Inference with no configuration required. Your prompts, audio, and model outputs are processed only to generate a response. They are never stored or used for training (you can read more about
how LiveKit enforces zero data retention
).
This means when a prospective customer asks how their data is protected, you have one clear answer across every model in LiveKit Inference without chasing down each provider.
Get started building
#
The program is for startups with fewer than 50 employees that have raised less than $5 million and are making voice, video, or physical AI a core part of their product. You should be incorporated or actively incorporating, have a live website and identifiable founding team, and be in production or planning to launch within six months. We consider larger funding rounds case by case. Full eligibility criteria are on the
program page
, and the
program terms
spell out the rest.
Once approved, create a LiveKit project and start building. If this is your first voice agent, our
quickstart
will get you up and running in about ten minutes.
There are incredible startups building the future of voice, video, and physical AI. We want to give them more room to build.
Apply now
.
Related
08.13.2026
How we handle Zero Data Retention (ZDR) in LiveKit
Read
08.13.2026
LiveKit’s stance on privacy and data
Read
01.22.2026
LiveKit's Series C: towards the voice-driven era of computing
Read
The open source framework and cloud platform for voice, video, and physical AI agents.
Products
Agent platform
Media server
SDKs
Cloud dashboard
Security
Terms of service
Resources
Documentation
Community
Startup Program
Coding agent support
Brand assets
Video codecs
Codec bitrates
WebRTC browser test
Connection test
Company
About
Blog
Careers
Open source
Keep in touch
369 Sutter St, San Francisco, CA
©
2026
LiveKit. Engineered and designed worldwide.
All rights reserved.
Terms of Service
|
Cookie Policy
|
Cookie Preferences
|
Privacy Policy
|
Security
