The China Mail - Berkeley SkyDeck and UC Berkeley Partner with Mayfield to Support AI-Focused Student Entrepreneurs

BERKELEY, CA / ACCESS Newswire / January 22, 2025 / Berkeley SkyDeck, the global hub for entrepreneurship and leading accelerator, along with UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS), today announced a partnership with Mayfield 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); admittance to Berkeley SkyDeck's highly competitive Pad-13 incubator program; acceptance into NVIDIA's Inception 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 breakthrough ideas into iconic companies. With the advent of AI, we believe it's more crucial than ever to meet founders where they are in their journey. The Mayfield AI Garage embodies this conviction, providing the capital, mentorship, and resources founders need to take their AI ideas to the next level,-," said Navin Chaddha, Managing Partner at Mayfield. "UC Berkeley has phenomenal AI talent, and the SkyDeck accelerator program has a proven legacy of nurturing founders. Partnering together made perfect sense, and we can't wait to see the exciting AI-based ideas from the first cohort of applicants."

The new program officially launches on January 22, 2025, with applications open until February 28, 2025. The three winning teams will be announced by 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 SkyDeck's 800+ pool of advisors, working space at the SkyDeck penthouse in Berkeley, and additional benefits from resource partners. Pad-13 is an important pipeline for the SkyDeck Accelerator program.

"Berkeley SkyDeck's partnerships have been pivotal to our success and a key draw for our accelerator companies," said Chon Tang, founding partner of Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. "We are thrilled to be working closely with the Mayfield AI Garage team and offering students unparalleled access to the resources necessary to create successful companies."

UC Berkeley has long been a leader for startup founders, ranking first for undergraduate alumni founders, first for female founders, first for the number of companies founded by alumni, and first for the amount of venture capital investment raised. This new program, in partnership with Mayfield, seeks to continue that tradition for AI-focused founders. To learn more, visit https://mayfield.ai/berkeley.

About Berkeley SkyDeck

Berkeley SkyDeck is a leading accelerator and the global hub for entrepreneurship. As UC Berkeley's largest and most prominent accelerator, SkyDeck combines hands-on mentorship with the vast resources of its research university. SkyDeck is the only accelerator of its kind that offers the value of a dedicated investment fund alongside the resources and network of a top university. To date, SkyDeck startups have raised more than $2 billion in aggregate. Participating startups have access to SkyDeck's 800 advisors, 70 industry partners, and a network of more than 510,000 UC Berkeley alumni. For more information, see skydeck.berkeley.edu.

About Mayfield

Mayfield partners with founders from day zero who see limitless possibilities where others see constraints. Drawing on our 55-year legacy of company building and people-first philosophy, we bring founder-to-founder expertise because we've built and scaled companies ourselves. We don't just write checks - founders say our unwavering commitment sets us apart. We've celebrated over 120 IPOs and 225+ acquisitions, including breakthrough companies like HashiCorp, Lyft, Mammoth BioSciences, Marketo, Nuvia, Poshmark, ServiceMax, and SolarCity. From our Silicon Valley home, with $3 billion in assets under management, Mayfield is more excited than ever to back founders building the AI future where potential knows no bounds. Join us at mayfield.com.

About CDSS

The UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS) creates accessible and equitable educational opportunities and catalyzes groundbreaking research to meet society's greatest challenges. This new college is reimagining inclusive collaboration to tackle the technical, scientific, social, and human dimensions of urgent challenges in health and biomedicine, climate and sustainability, and more. CDSS considers critically the profound impacts of data and computing in a rapidly evolving digital world. For more information, see cdss.berkeley.edu.

Media contact

Songue PR for Berkeley SkyDeck
[email protected]

SOURCE: Berkeley SkyDeck

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

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