Amazon.com Inc.’s public cloud computing business is launching a new pilot program that’s aimed at connecting venture capitalists with money-seeking tech startups that use its information technology infrastructure.

Still nascent, Amazon Web Services Inc.’s Pro-Rata Program will focus on more risky startups, CNBC said in an exclusive report Friday.

AWS has grown to become Amazon’s most profitable business, providing flexible IT infrastructure to all manner of large enterprises and government agencies. A large part of that growth, however, was thanks to startups that used its compute and storage services to fuel their own growth, such as ride-sharing company Lyft Inc. and the collaboration software company Slack Technologies Inc., and Amazon presumably wants to keep that pipeline flowing.

CNBC reported that it had seen an email from AWS to investors that discussed the program. It said AWS Pro-Rata is “intended to connect family offices and venture capitalists for specific investment opportunities from the AWS ecosystem.”

Amazon has made previous efforts to welcome startups to its fold and help them to secure funding. For example it offers the AWS Activate program, where it has partnered with more than 3,000 incubators, accelerators, investors and others to help spread the use of its services. It also offers promotional credits to startup developers, allowing them to use its services for free until they can start generating revenue.

The AWS Pro-Rata is designed to bring more startups into its fold, Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc., told SiliconANGLE.

“AWS has always been the place for startups, and now it plans to compete beyond its tenure and tech capabilities with the other thing that startups need, which is financing,” Mueller said. “Becoming an enabler and mediator between underused capital like family offices on the one side and startups on the other side can be a winning combination, setting AWS up for more growth, adding a differentiator and changing its role to an overall enabler of startups.”

At first glance, the program looks to be a place for investors to bet on riskier startups, CNBC reported. Early entrants into the program include a company called Boom Technology Inc. that’s hoping to build supersonic jets that travel at twice the speed of sound. It plans to sell tickets for the same price as a standard business class flight on a regular jet.

Amazon won’t invest any money in the startups itself, but simply act as an intermediary for venture capitalists willing to take their chances. The program would presumably add some protections to investors looking to make such bets, Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group told SiliconANGLE.

“Securities are a product and prepublic investing is already a thing at web scale, so why not field a service with better protections?” Enderle said.  “Amazon should be able to lower the risk substantially and this gives the company a largely free cash pool it can direct.”

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE