VC Spotlight: Mayfield Fund
Before “AI teammate” was a catchphrase, before founders raised with a pitch deck and a prayer, before venture capital became a status symbol in Patagonia, it was Mayfield Fund. Founded in 1969 by Thomas J. Davis Jr. and Wally Davis, the firm wasn’t built to chase hype, it was built to hunt heat. And for 55 years, it’s stayed lit, unapologetically early, unapologetically people-first.
Thomas J. Davis Jr. didn’t just co-found Mayfield. He co-founded the entire modern venture framework, backing Fairchild’s renegades before Sand Hill had a skyline. William F. Miller, Stanford’s provost and Mayfield’s early architect, fused academia with capital. Atari, Genentech, Tandem, this wasn’t a portfolio, it was a blueprint.
Fast forward. The year’s 2011. Navin Chaddha takes the reins. Stanford University-trained, IIT tempered, and battle-tested from building VXtreme and iBeam. He didn’t pivot Mayfield. He upgraded it. $2.6 billion raised across seven funds. Top 5 on ForbesMidas four years running. Not because he chased unicorns, but because he backed humans who became legends.
Mayfield’s conviction? Simple. People make products. Products don’t make people. They invest $1–4M at seed, $5–15M at Series A. Acceptance rate: 0.4%. Lower than YC. Higher stakes. Sector focus? Where impact meets edge: AI native infra, quantum and fusion, CRISPR and climate. The whole deep tech symphony, and Mayfield’s got first-row tickets.
AI Start. A $250M seed fund for founders building with purpose, not prompt engineering. Realta Fusion. Cognichip Inc.. NovaSky. These aren’t buzzwords. These are blueprints for a different world. Backed by partners like Rajeev Batra, Arvind Gupta, Ursheet P., and Vijay R., each one a specialist with a sniper’s eye for early advantage.
And then there’s the ecosystem. AI Garage with University of California, Berkeley Berkeley. Story Market Fit pre-launch playbooks. A CXO network that’s closed 500 follow-ons, hired 300 execs, and turned intros into infrastructure. Mayfield doesn’t just write checks. They engineer outcomes.
Legacy exits? Lyft. Poshmark. SolarCity. But Mayfield’s not dwelling in the past. They’re building the front page of the future. Their brand of “conscious capital” isn’t marketing fluff. It’s 1% of fees and carry rerouted to programs like College Track, Him For Her, and the Mayfield Fellows at Stanford.
They’re hiring. Cognichip wants AI chip engineers. Realta Fusion’s after plasma physicists. NovaSky is recruiting co-founders to build open-source AI that won’t collapse under scrutiny.
Link’s below :
Cognichip: https://www.cognichip.ai/careers
Realta Fusion: https://realtafusion.com/careers/
NovaSky: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nova-sky-stories/jobs/
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