Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched its annual Start-Up Challenge, which will award $100,000 in combined cash and credits to the winner. This is the sixth year for the competition which recognizes promising fledgling companies that develop their products on AWS.

According the official announcement, the competition is open to:

• Individuals or sole proprietors who are at least 18 years old or the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence and have the full legal capacity to participate in this Contest at time of entry; or
• Privately held businesses that have not generated more than $10 million USD in gross annual revenues and no more than $10 million USD in outside funding.

AWS will select four grand prize winners from the competition’s four categories: Big Data & High Performance Computing; Gaming; Consumer Applications; Business Applications. The lucky (and talented) winners each receive $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, AWS Business-level support for one year and technical mentoring from AWS. In addition, finalists, semi-finalist and even those that just enter will receive smaller prizes.

AWS will announce semi-finalists  in early December and finalists in early January. Finalistswill present their businesses to a panel of AWS executives and venture capitalists. Finalists will receive feedback on their business and perhaps join previous winners like Loggly, GoodData and Justin.tv.