Google Cloud Next Startups: Top Picks & Innovations

Google Cloud Next 2024: New AI Features and Startup Partnerships

This week, Google hosted its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas. The event featured the unveiling of numerous new capabilities, including the Ironwood, its next-generation AI processing chip, and the Gemini 2.5 Flash AI model.

AI Startup Adoption of Google Cloud

A significant announcement revolved around a growing number of AI startups choosing Google Cloud as their platform. This list encompasses several of the most closely followed companies in the AI space.

Notably, the roster includes Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a venture established by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and former chief scientist at OpenAI.

Featured AI Startups

Several other prominent startups were highlighted as Google Cloud customers:

Anysphere, the creator of the widely-used AI-powered code editor Cursor, is leveraging Anthropic’s Claude models on Google Cloud. Recent valuations have placed Cursor at approximately $10 billion. Its primary competitor is likely Microsoft’s GitHub CoPilot.

Hebbia employs AI to facilitate search and question answering within extensive document sets, proving particularly valuable in the legal sector. The company secured $130 million in Series B funding, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Google Ventures, and Peter Thiel. Hebbia utilizes Google’s Gemini models.

Magic is focused on developing advanced models for automating both coding and research tasks. Their selection of Google Cloud is unsurprising, given that their $320 million fundraising round in 2024 included investments from Alphabet’s CapitalG and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. They are utilizing Google Cloud’s GPU resources.

Physical Intelligence is dedicated to building foundational software for robotics. The company boasts a distinguished team of co-founders, including Lachy Groom. They recently raised $400 million at a $2 billion pre-money valuation, backed by Sequoia, Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital. Several founders have prior experience at Google DeepMind, including Karol Hausman and Chelsea Finn.

Photoroom, a leading AI startup based in Paris, Europe’s AI hub, provides AI-driven photo editing solutions. They are currently utilizing Google Cloud’s Veo 2 video generation model and the Imagen 3 text-to-image model.

Synthesia specializes in creating highly realistic AI avatars and is integrating various Google models into its products. The company completed an $180 million funding round at a $2.1 billion valuation in January, with GV (formerly Google Ventures) among the investors.

Strengthening Google’s Position in the AI Cloud Market

Collectively, these partnerships demonstrate Google Cloud’s efforts to strengthen its competitive position against Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the rapidly evolving AI workload market.

Google also announced the addition of Lightspeed Venture Partners to its existing network of VC partners, which already includes Sequoia and Y Combinator. This collaboration provides portfolio companies of these investors with access to Google’s AI chips and models.

Lightspeed’s AI portfolio companies are eligible for up to $150,000 in cloud credits, as part of Google’s strategy to attract more innovative startups to its cloud platform.

Additional AI Startups Showcased

The following AI startups were also showcased by Google this week:

• Augment Code – An AI software coding agent.
• Autoscience – AI agents for scientific research.
• Big Sur AI – Personalized recommendations for e-commerce platforms.
• Captions – A platform for creating and editing talking videos.
• Eon.io – Provides autonomous enterprise backup and recovery solutions.
• fal is – Specializes in text-to-image and image-to-video generation.
• Spot AI – AI-powered solutions for security cameras.
• Story – A blockchain platform for storing and licensing intellectual property.
• StudyHall AI – Offers coaching to students in reading, writing, and exam preparation.
• Ubie – A Japanese healthcare symptom analyzer.
• Udio – A platform for music creation.
• Ufonia – An agent for clinical healthcare consultations with patients.
• Wagestream – A financial well-being platform supported by charities.
• Wondercraft – Generates realistic audio content using GenAI.