How Startups Can Benefit from Corporates: Learnings from Intel® Liftoff for AI Startups

Eugenie_Wirz · ‎07-09-2025

By Eugenie Wirz, PhD, Lead of Intel® Liftoff for AI Startups

Over the past three years, I’ve worked with more than 350 AI startups through Intel® Liftoff, our ecosystem program built for early-stage innovators. Of those, 150+ have gone on to collaborate directly with Intel, some fresh off the whiteboard, others already scaling fast.

If you’re an AI founder wondering whether partnering with a corporation like Intel makes sense, the short answer is: yes. But only if you know how to make it work for you.

This article breaks down what we’ve learned from real-world startup collabs, and how you can use those insights to gain speed, traction, and visibility.

Why Team Up with a Corporate Like Intel?

One of the first questions early-stage founders ask is: “Won’t this slow us down?”. It’s a fair question, and I see where it’s coming from. The reality is that, when done right, a corporate partnership can actually accelerate your momentum.

These partnerships offer a fast track to more visibility, hands-on feedback from engineering experts, access to dev tools and hardware, co-marketing boosts, and real go-to-market support. In return, companies like Intel get something just as valuable: early signals on emerging tech, insight into what builders actually need, and the opportunity to fine-tune their stack based on real-world usage.

Visibility Matters, Inside and Out

Partnering with a corporate accelerator gives your startup more than just a logo to name-drop. The association with a global brand can add weight in conversations with investors, customers, and potential hires. And internal visibility matters just as much. A compelling demo or technical pilot can spark attention across teams. That can (and so often does) open doors to deeper collaboration, showcases, and speaking opportunities.

One early-stage team, for instance, joined Intel® Liftoff while developing GenAI applications in the cybersecurity space. What started as a developer sprint quickly evolved into hands-on exploration of Intel’s stack for LLMs. Today, you’ll probably recognize that team as PredictionGuard: a fast-growing company building trustworthy GenAI infrastructure for enterprise use. The visibility from that technical engagement led to stage time, joint panels, and a stronger go-to-market position. Their story is yet more proof that even garage-stage projects can go far when the tech clicks.

Tech Access and Real Feedback

One of the best ways to get into Intel’s ecosystem is through the technology itself. Intel® Liftoff provides early-stage startups with technical expertise and support, and access to hardware like the Intel® Gaudi® accelerators and the Intel® Tiber AI Cloud, plus a suite of developer tools.

But it’s not just about free compute. It’s about building alongside engineers who know the stack inside and out.

For example, dstack built an orchestration layer for AI workloads and added support for Intel hardware. Their story was featured in the Intel developer blog, showing how a niche solution can gain big visibility. That’s the kind of exposure that can turn a niche solution into a conversation starter with enterprise buyers and the wider AI dev community.

If your startup solves a hard tech problem, Intel wants to hear from you.

Knowledge You Can Use

The mentoring startups get through Intel® Liftoff isn’t surface-level. It happens during structured 1:1 sessions, live engineering sprints, and developer-focused events like Intel® Liftoff Days. Intel engineers work directly with teams, reviewing code, walking through optimization strategies, and offering targeted advice on things like memory management, inference latency, and hardware-specific tuning for Gaudi® or Xeon® platforms.

During Liftoff Days, startups spend a full week co-developing with Intel engineers to debug real workloads, optimize throughput, and benchmark performance against enterprise-grade standards.

This is where performance bottlenecks get solved. Where models are tuned for production, not just demos. And where real hardware results replace guesswork.

How to Start Smart

Here’s what matters when starting a corporate collaboration:

Know the scope. Is it a tech pilot? Co-marketing? A PoC? Know what you're getting into and what the team on the other side is measured on.
Understand the timeline. Corporates move slower than startups. Ask how long things will take and who makes decisions.
Ask what’s available. Compute? Engineering time? Marketing support? Get clarity on what help you’ll get and what’s out of scope.
Accept the structure. Corporates are complex. It takes time to connect the dots inside. Find your champions and keep your value story simple and strong.

“But I Want a Customer, Funding, or Acquisition…”

Every founder hopes a corporate will become a customer, investor, or acquirer. That can happen, but it rarely happens quickly. The beauty of a collaboration with Intel is that it’s a force multiplier, not the endgame. It will accelerate your progress. It will unlock new opportunities, and put your tech in the right rooms. But you’re still the one at the wheel.

Your job is to become visible, create value, and stay top of mind when the timing is right. So don’t push for deals too early.

Why Intel Loves Startups

Here’s the truth: everyone at Intel loves working with startups. Founders bring fresh energy, domain expertise, and ideas we haven’t seen before. You move fast. You bring fast feedback, fast proof points, and fast demos. In a large, process-heavy company, that speed is a gift.

Startups are the fresh wind that keeps our platform honest and our roadmap sharp. We need you just as much as you need us.

Real Startup Stories

Prediction Guard joined as a small team during the GenAI boom, tested Intel’s stack for LLMs, and ended up becoming both a co-marketing success story and an Intel customer. They’ve since spoken on Intel stages and continue to grow with Intel tech under the hood.

TurinTech, a UK startup with a production-ready ML optimization platform, first joined Intel Ignite deep-tech startup accelerator for business expansion. They later entered Intel Liftoff to focus on technical validation. Their journey included platform tuning, collaborative benchmarking, and joint visibility through articles and campaigns. Today, they’re a scaling company and remain a strong ecosystem partner.

Final Word

If you’re an early-stage AI startup and wondering whether a company like Intel will work with you, the answer is yes. We work with founders from idea stage to scale-up. The key is to be real, move fast, and be open to building something together.

Intel® Liftoff was built to make these collaborations possible. And if you’re ready, Intel is ready too.