Committed to growing the Australian space industry – on and off the planet.

Microsoft for Space Startups Australia

Sending entrepreneurs into orbit

Microsoft is committed to powering growth and innovation in the Australian space industry. We’re committed to creating a startup ecosystem that is open to all. Our program is centred around three key areas: unlocking innovation for all, technology benefits that grow, and access to mentorship and guidance.

We’re currently looking to collaborate with young companies focused on cloud-powered innovation, on and off the planet. As a startup in our program, you will receive a multitude of benefits to accelerate you mission, from mentorship with space industry experts to 24-hour technical assistance.

There’s no need to be backed by investors – every innovator is welcome. This tailored program was developed as part of the Microsoft for Startups program, which has seen close to 7,000 startups graduate and achieve over a billion dollars’ worth of sales.

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Benefits

Up to US $150,000 in Azure credits

Free access to Microsoft tools

One-on-one technical advice

Space, technical and business mentorship

24/7 technical assistance

No fees, no equity, no lock-in contract.

Eligibility

To be eligible for Microsoft for Space Startups Australia, your startup is:

Focussed on being part of Australia’s burgeoning space scene
Under seven years old
A privately held, for-profit business
Engaged in developing a software-based product that’s owned not licensed

Not a recipient of more than $10,000 in Azure Credits
Not an educational institution, government entity, personal blog, dev shop, consultancy, professional services firm, agency, or bitcoin or crypto mining company
Not a managed customer of Microsoft or one of our CSP partners

Apply Now

Space partnerships

Whether you’re building intelligent Earth-observation satellites, enabling the creation of climate-resilient cities with space data or building space cybersecurity solutions, Space Startups do ground-breaking work. Collaborating with Space Startups inspires and invigorates us at Microsoft, and we can’t wait to work with the next innovative company.

Learn more about our startup partnerships

man standing in an aircraft looking out to space

Customer Stories

Fortifyedge stretches machine learning all the way to Mars

For most of us, confirming our identity is a simple case of verifying our email and password, and perhaps a unique code sent to our smartphone. But Major Tom’s in space with his hands full; it’s not that easy.

Spiral Blue takes edge computing into orbit, democratising space data

Taofiq Huq was just five years old when he arrived in Australia from Bangladesh. Even as a young schoolboy in Sydney, he knew that he wanted to ‘do something in space’ when he grew up and completed an aerospace engineering degree at UNSW.

building with green plants hanging on the side

Office of Planetary Observations heads to space for a greener Planet Earth

With a background in Landscape Architecture, Thomas Gooch knows the value more vegetation and trees have for our urban environments – but he was constantly challenged to prove that with data.

Still have questions? Want to talk with our space industry experts?

Frequently Asked Questions

Azure Space is a set of products and services that are powered by key partnerships and designed to meet the needs of the space community. For more information read the official Microsoft blog

The space community is growing rapidly, and innovation is lowering the barriers of access for public- and private-sector organisations. Microsoft wants to make space connectivity and compute more accessible for industries like agriculture, energy, telecommunications, and government.

Founders can apply directly from startups.microsoft.com. We look forward to hearing from you and are excited to review your application.

Our team reviews every application and evaluates how well a company meets the eligibility criteria at the time of application. You may reapply when you feel your startup better fits the guidelines or if you’d like to provide additional information to be reviewed.

Once 14 days have passed, a previously declined founder can reapply through.

We love bootstrapped startups and would be happy to consider you. Please apply so we can learn all about you and your business idea!

The M12 venture fund and its initiatives and investments operate independently of Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups does often collaborate with M12, but we are a separate initiative and do not offer venture capital.