At its annual Relate conference, Zendesk today announced a new $100 million, two-year commitment to help startups move faster, automate, and build world-class customer experiences into their stack from day one.

The Zendesk for Startups program is built for the next generation of founders, offering access to products at no cost, along with resources and partner benefits to help them build and scale faster.

For the first time, Zendesk is also extending dedicated benefits to venture capital partners across their portfolios.

Adrian McDermott, CTO, Zendesk says, “The decisions founders make early about their customer infrastructure shape everything that comes after. I joined Zendesk when we were a small startup, and those early decisions shaped everything that followed. We built this program with that experience in mind. AI has fundamentally changed what a small team can accomplish from day one—founders shouldn’t have to choose between moving fast and building right. With AI built in from the start, they can do both while extending their runway by removing cost as a barrier."

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More than 50,000 startups globally have scaled on Zendesk, including fast-growing companies like ElevenLabs and Canva.

Built to grow with startups, the program supports founders and extends through Series B for companies with up to 250 employees.

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Members receive up to two years of access to Zendesk’s full AI suite—the longest no-cost commitment of any CX startup offering currently available—plus more seats and higher monthly resolution limits than comparable programs. They also gain access to a new digital membership hub and exclusive partner benefits from AWS, GitHub, Notion, and others.

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Lauren Burke Silva, Co-Founder and CEO, MERIT says, “The process of organizing people and resources for government bids is notoriously inefficient, and the best teams often lose because of it. We built MERIT to streamline that pursuit process. By choosing Zendesk, we’re able to automate workflows and deploy AI agents from day one—allowing us to stay lean and focused on our mission to help our customers win.”