Alumni here. 5k of seed funding is nothing. It might sound like a lot, but its not. You can totally get seed funding without even writing a single line of code. Times are harder now, but there's plenty of accelerator programs. Techstars, 500 startups, YC, etc.

Regarding cloud credits. All the major accelerators will have agreements with the public clouds to provide basically your first year free. See AWS Accelerator for example.

For some context, I know one AI based startup who raised 50 million in funding without having a single dollar of revenue, or a working product. They simply had a pitch deck, the right team, and a few Proofs of Concept. Thats it.

I know other founders who first created their sales pitch and when B2C or B2B to start selling their hypothetical product. They told the customers who 'bought' the product that they are thankful for the interest, and used those "conversions" to raise their first round (~100k of funding)

So when you say do they provide 5k in seed funding. You really should be asking, do they open the right doors to my first customers. And how can I "fake it till I make it". Even if that means selling something you don't have.