Mayfield, a top-tier early-stage venture capital firm, announced the $250 million AI Start, the first seed fund in its history, to partner with AI-first founders starting at Day Zero. The Firm also added Vijay Reddy, an AI-focused investor with a decade of successful seed stage experience, as a dedicated AI Start Seed Fund partner.
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“We believe that AI will emerge as our teammate and that the Gen.AI wave will create many iconic companies,” said Navin Chaddha, Mayfield Managing Partner. “However, AI founders will need investors with operational prowess that’s as forward-thinking as the Gen.AI industry itself. AI Start brings our craftsperson investing approach to founders at the inception stage of their company formation. It will also continue our syndicate-friendly commitment to angel investors and seed funds, by being flexible around check size and ownership needs. Along with Vijay, who has a proven track record in helping seed stage AI founders scale, we look forward to participating in the Gen.AI movement.”
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The AI Start team will run a quick process to evaluate new investments, with typical check sizes ranging from $1-4 million. All AI Start companies will benefit from access to Mayfield’s team of company builders, founder amplification leaders, and the best-of-breed experts on the Mayfield Value-Add platform. AI Start complements Mayfield’s classic primarily Series A focused fund, the $580 million Mayfield XVII, and its $375 million Mayfield Spring/Select III fund, which were announced in May of this year. AI Start will draw from Mayfield’s current funds as well as from the new pool of capital.
Reddy has previously invested across all layers of the AI stack. Some of his past investments include AEye (NASDAQ: LIDR), BabbleLabs (acquired by Cisco), DataRobot, Joby, Lilt, and SambaNova.
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