Synopsis
A grey market for discounted AI credits has emerged following Y Combinator's Startup School in India. Attendees are selling free credits for AWS, Azure, and OpenAI at reduced prices, with some facing activation issues and restrictions. These messages are from founders, engineers and student builders.Listen to this article in summarized format
“Hey, are you willing to buy AWS credits? I have $10,000 worth of credits, can give it for $2,000-3,000,” read one message reviewed by ET. Another said, “Willing to sell Azure credits, want to buy?”
Such messages, offering AI credits that startups and builders use to access expensive compute power and developer tools, are increasingly appearing across developer WhatsApp groups and Reddit threads.
These messages are from founders, engineers and student builders who attended Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator’s first Startup School in India in Bengaluru on April 18.
Y Combinator (YC), on its first visit to India, had selected around 2,000 participants for the programme and distributed free API tokens, compute power and developer tool credits worth $25,000 (roughly Rs 21 lakh).
For early-stage AI startups, which burn through a massive amount of money just to test, train, and run models, these credits or tokens help cover initial backend costs.
Several participants with little immediate need for their credits resorted to selling them at discounted rates, effectively creating a grey market for AI credits.
“About 8-10 people have approached me and friends to sell these credits at a 20-40% discount, but not many are buying. They are just shooting in the dark in case they can make some quick money,” said one 16-year old developer who attended the programme.
An AI startup founder from Bengaluru said it is similar to “LinkedIn premium accounts or other builder tools being sold at discounted prices in the grey market.”
However, some attendees told ET that some credits either did not work as expected, or came with activation restrictions, prompting them to sell them.
Y Combinator did not respond to ET’s queries sent on Friday until press time on Monday.
