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Berkeley SkyDeck, the worldwide hub for entrepreneurship and accelerator, together with UC Berkeley Faculty of Computing, Knowledge Science, and Society (CDSS), introduced a partnership with Mayfield.
The goals is to help AI-focused, pupil entrepreneurs with unparalleled entry to enterprise capital and world-class mentorship.
A part of the Mayfield AI Storage initiative, this new program will choose three successful improvements from UC Berkeley college students, and award them a $25,000 stipend for every founding crew member (as much as $50,000 per crew); admittance to Berkeley SkyDeck’s extremely aggressive Pad-13 incubator program; acceptance into Nvidia’s Inception program for startups; as much as $350,000 in compute credit from Microsoft Azure; and direct mentorship from Mayfield’s crew.
“All through Mayfield’s 55-year historical past, we’ve helped early-stage entrepreneurs remodel breakthrough concepts into iconic firms. With the appearance of AI, we imagine it’s extra essential than ever to satisfy founders the place they’re of their journey. The Mayfield AI Storage embodies this conviction, offering the capital, mentorship, and assets founders have to take their AI concepts to the subsequent degree,” mentioned Navin Chaddha, managing accomplice at Mayfield, in an announcement. “UC Berkeley has phenomenal AI expertise, and the SkyDeck accelerator program has a confirmed legacy of nurturing founders. Partnering collectively made excellent sense, and we are able to’t wait to see the thrilling AI-based concepts from the primary cohort of candidates.”
The brand new program formally launches on January 22, 2025, with purposes open till February 28, 2025. The three successful groups will likely be introduced by April 15, 2025, and the primary program will run from Could – November 2025. As a part of the SkyDeck Pad-13 incubator program, founders will obtain entry to SkyDeck’s premium workshops, a devoted mentor from SkyDeck’s 800+ pool of advisors, working house on the SkyDeck penthouse in Berkeley, and extra advantages from useful resource companions. Pad-13 is a vital pipeline for the SkyDeck Accelerator program.
“Berkeley SkyDeck’s partnerships have been pivotal to our success and a key draw for our accelerator firms,” mentioned Chon Tang, founding accomplice of Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, in an announcement. “We’re thrilled to be working carefully with the Mayfield AI Storage crew and providing college students unparalleled entry to the assets essential to create profitable firms.”
UC Berkeley has lengthy been a frontrunner for startup founders, rating first for undergraduate alumni founders, first for feminine founders, first for the variety of firms based by alumni, and first for the quantity of enterprise capital funding raised. This new program, in partnership with Mayfield, seeks to proceed that custom for AI-focused founders. To be taught extra, go to https://mayfield.ai/berkeley.
Mayfield companions with founders from day zero who see limitless potentialities the place others see constraints. Drawing on its 55-year legacy of firm constructing and people-first philosophy, Mayfield carry founder-to-founder experience to its startups. Mayfield has had over 120 IPOs and 225+ acquisitions. It has $3 billion in belongings below administration.
Final yr, Mayfield launched the Mayfield AI Storage initiative with $100 million centered on ideation-stage founders constructing AI Teammate firms. This program grew out of Mayfield’s 40-year observe file of working with entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs). Our EIR program has been the launchpad for quite a few profitable firms, and we’re bringing this confirmed mannequin to UC Berkeley, offering the identical high-touch help and assets to pupil founders.
I requested Navin Chaddha, managing accomplice of the Mayfield Fund, why it was good to begin so younger with AI enterpreneurship whereas college students had been nonetheless in school.
“I’ve been investing for over twenty years and seen one thing fascinating: essentially the most transformative firms usually come from younger founders who strategy issues with a “newbie’s thoughts,” he mentioned in a message to GamesBeat. “Historical past has proven that a few of the most profitable firms, like Microsoft, Google, and Fb, had been began by college students who weren’t constrained by standard considering. Within the AI period, being younger is a superpower.”
He added, “Right this moment’s college students are rising up with AI; they’re constructing with giant language fashions like others use spreadsheets and imagining purposes that others would possibly dismiss as not possible. The technical expertise popping out of UC Berkeley proper now’s extraordinary – they’re bringing recent views to onerous issues. These college students are publishing papers on foundational AI fashions, successful worldwide competitions, and plenty of are already engaged on tasks that could possibly be the subsequent breakthrough in AI.”
I additionally requested what number of offers might occur in a given time.
“We’re choosing three pupil groups to affix the Mayfield AI Storage at Berkeley program, however that is just the start of a much wider imaginative and prescient,” Chaddha mentioned. “Every crew will get a stipend and entry to important instruments and assets, however extra importantly, they get mentorship from our crew and entry to our total ecosystem to assist transfer from ideation to a full-fledged startup.”
And he mentioned, “By way of our partnerships with Nvidia and Microsoft, these groups will get direct entry to cutting-edge AI infrastructure and technical experience. Being a part of UC Berkeley SkyDeck’s Pad-13 program can also be transformative – it places these founders on the coronary heart of UC Berkeley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting them with different founders, college, and SkyDeck’s community of {industry} advisors.”
And I requested about competing packages and why Berkeley SkyDeck was the best selection.
Chaddha mentioned, “Silicon Valley has quite a few accelerators and incubators that present capital and assets in change for fairness, however we’ve structured the Mayfield AI Storage at Berkeley program otherwise. Reasonably than taking a broad-based strategy, we’re making a launchpad for 3 pupil groups to discover if their AI concepts can flip into firms – with no strings hooked up. We’re not taking fairness or requiring incorporation; as an alternative, we’re offering capital, mentorship from our crew, and entry to our total community at this concept exploration stage.”
He added, “Coaching giant language fashions or operating intensive experiments will be prohibitively costly. Accessing assets like Microsoft Azure compute credit or Nvidia’s Inception program requires being a venture-backed firm, which generally is a vital barrier for college kids. We’re eradicating these obstacles totally. Groups additionally get entry to Berkeley Skydeck’s Pad-13 incubator program.”
And he closed by saying, “Our partnership with UC Berkeley builds on our lengthy historical past of backing profitable Berkeley founders, together with Poshmark, Cloudgenix, MindsDB, BigPanda, Rancher Labs, and Mammoth Biosciences. UC Berkeley is a powerhouse in AI analysis, notably in areas like basis fashions, knowledge, middleware and tooling, and human-AI interplay. We’re excited to accomplice with UC Berkeley’s CDSS and SkyDeck to make the Mayfield AI Storage at Berkeley a launchpad for pupil founders constructing the way forward for AI. “
