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Berkeley SkyDeckthe global hub for entrepreneurship and accelerator, including UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS), announced a partnership with Mayfield.
The goal is to support AI-focused, student entrepreneurs with unparalleled access to venture capital and world-class mentorship.
Part of the Mayfield AI Garage initiative, this new program will select three winning innovations from UC Berkeley students, and award them a $25,000 stipend for each founding team member (up to $50,000 per team); entry into the highly competitive Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13 incubator program; reception to Nvidia Startup Program for startups; up to $350,000 in compute credits from Microsoft Azure; and direct mentorship from Mayfield's team.
“Throughout Mayfield's 55-year history, we've helped early-stage entrepreneurs transform ideas of success into iconic companies. With the advent of AI, we believe it's more important than ever to meet founders where they are in their journey. The Mayfield AI Garage embodies this belief, providing the capital, mentorship, and resources founders need to take their AI ideas to the next level,” said Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield, in a statement. “UC Berkeley has amazing talent in AI, and the SkyDeck accelerator program has a proven legacy of nurturing founders. The merger makes perfect sense, and we can't wait to see those exciting AI-based ideas from the first group of applicants.”
The new program will officially launch on January 22, 2025, with applications open until February 28, 2025. The three winning teams will be announced on April 15, 2025, and the first program will run from May – November 2025. As part of the SkyDeck Pad-13 incubator program, founders will receive access to SkyDeck's premium workshops, a dedicated mentor from 800+ of the SkyDeck pool of advisors, working space in the SkyDeck penthouse in Berkeley, and additional benefits from resource partners. Pad-13 is an important pipeline for the SkyDeck Accelerator program.
“The Berkeley SkyDeck partnership has been integral to our success and a key draw for our accelerator companies,” said Chon Tang, founding partner of the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, in a statement. “We are excited to work closely with the Mayfield AI Garage team and offer students unparalleled access to the resources necessary to create successful companies.”
UC Berkeley has long been a leader for startup founders, ranked first for undergraduate alumni founders, first for female founders, first for number of alumni-founded companies, and first for venture capital value investment raised. This new program, in partnership with Mayfield, aims to continue that tradition for AI-focused founders. To learn more, visit https://mayfield.ai/berkeley.
Mayfield has partnered with founders from day zero who see limitless possibilities where others see obstacles. Building on its 55-year legacy of company building and people-first philosophy, Mayfield brings founder-to-founder expertise to its startups. Mayfield has had over 120 IPOs and 225+ acquisitions. It has $3 billion in assets under management.
Last year, Mayfield launched the Mayfield AI Garage initiative with $100 million focused on developing idea-stage founders. AI Teammates companies. This program grew out of Mayfield's 40-year track record of working with entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs). Our EIR program has been a launchpad for many successful companies, and we are bringing this proven model to UC Berkeley, providing both high-touch support and resources to student founders.
I asked Navin Chaddha, managing partner of the Mayfield Fund, why it's good to start AI entrepreneurship very young while students are still in college.
“I have been investing for more than two decades and have noticed something fascinating: the most innovative companies often come from young founders who approach problems with a “newbie's mind,” he said in a message to GamesBeat. “History has shown that some of the most successful companies, such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, were started by students who were not constrained by conventional thinking. In the age of AI, being young is a superpower.”
He added, “Today's students are growing up with AI; they work with large language models like others who use spreadsheets and imagine applications that others might dismiss as impossible. The technical talent coming out of UC Berkeley today is extraordinary – they bring new perspectives to difficult problems. These students are publishing papers on fundamental AI models, winning international competitions, and many are already working on projects that could be the next breakthrough in AI.”
I also asked how many deals might happen at a given time.
“We are selecting three student groups to join the Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley program, but this is just the beginning of a broader vision,” Chaddha said. “Each team gets a stipend and access to valuable tools and resources, but most importantly, they get mentorship from our team and access to our entire ecosystem to help move from ideation to a full-fledged startup.”
And he said, “Through our collaboration with Nvidia and Microsoft, these teams will gain direct access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure and technical expertise. Being part of UC Berkeley SkyDeck's Pad-13 program is also transformative – placing these founders at the heart of UC Berkeley's entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting them with other founders, faculty, and SkyDeck's network of industry mentors.
And I asked about competing programs and why Berkeley SkyDeck was the right choice.
Chaddha said, “Silicon Valley has many accelerators and incubators that provide capital and resources in exchange for equity, but we structured the Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley program in a different way. Instead of using a broad-based approach, we're creating a launchpad for three student teams to explore whether their AI ideas can become companies – with no strings attached. We do not take equity or require integration; instead, we provide capital, mentorship from our team, and access to our entire network at this stage of idea exploration.”
He added, “Training large language models or running extensive experiments can be very expensive. Accessing resources like Microsoft Azure compute credits or Nvidia's Inception program requires being a venture-backed company, which can be a huge barrier for students. We're removing these barriers entirely. Teams also get access to Berkeley Skydeck's incubator program.”
And he closed by saying, “Our partnership with UC Berkeley builds on our long history of supporting successful Berkeley founders, including Poshmark, Cloudgenix, MindsDB, BigPanda, Rancher Labs, and Mammoth Biosciences. UC Berkeley is a powerhouse in AI research, particularly in areas such as foundational models, data, middleware and tooling, and human-AI interaction.We are excited to partner with UC's CDSS and SkyDeck Berkeley to make the Mayfield AI Garage a launchpad for student founders building the future of AI.”
