Meta launches program to encourage startups to use its Llama AI models

Meta is launching a new program to incentivize startups to adopt its Llama AI models.

The program, Llama for Startups, provides companies “direct support” from Meta’s Llama team, as well as funding in certain cases. Any U.S.-based firm that is incorporated, has raised less than $10 million in funding, has at least one developer on staff, and is building generative AI applications is eligible to apply by the May 30 deadline.

“Members may receive up to $6,000 per month for up to six months to help them offset the costs of building and enhancing their generative AI solutions,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “Our experts will work closely with them to get started and explore advanced use cases of Llama that could benefit their startups.”

The launch of the Llama startup program comes as Meta tries to cement its lead in the fiercely competitive open model space. While the tech giant’s Llama models have racked up more than a billion downloads to date, rivals such as DeepSeek, Google, and Alibaba’s Qwen threaten to upend Meta’s efforts to establish a far-reaching model ecosystem.

Not helping matters, Llama has suffered several setbacks over the past few months.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported Meta has delayed the rollout of a flagship AI model, Llama 4 Behemoth, over concerns the model underperforms on key benchmarks. In April, Meta had to fend off allegations that it cheated on a popular crowdsourced AI benchmark, LM Arena. The company used a version of its Llama 4 Maverick model “optimized for conversationality” to achieve a high score on LM Arena, but released a different version of Maverick publicly.

Meta has huge ambitions for Llama — and its broader generative AI portfolio. Last year, the company made a prediction its generative AI products would rake in $2 billion to $3 billion in revenue in 2025, and between $460 billion and $1.4 trillion by 2035.

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Meta has revenue-sharing agreements with some companies that host its Llama models. The company recently launched an API for customizing Llama releases. And Meta AI, the company’s AI assistant powered by Llama, may eventually show ads and offer a subscription with additional features, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q1 earnings call.

These products have proven costly to build. In 2024, Meta’s “GenAI” budget was more than $900 million, and this year, it could exceed $1 billion. That’s not including the infrastructure needed to run and train the models. Meta previously said it plans to spend $60 billion to $80 billion on capital expenditures in 2025, primarily on new data centers.