Berkeley SkyDeckthe global hub for entrepreneurship and accelerator, with 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) ; entering Berkeley SkyDeck’s highly competitive Pad-13 incubator program; acceptance of 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 ideas into iconic companies. With the advent of AI, we believe it’s more important than ever to meet founders where they are on 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. level,” said Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield, in a statement. “UC Berkeley has incredible AI talent, and the SkyDeck accelerator program has a proven legacy of nurturing founders. The collaboration makes perfect sense, and we can’t wait to see the 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 SkyDeck’s 800+ 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.

“Berkeley SkyDeck’s partnerships are critical to our success and a key draw for our accelerator companies,” said Chon Tang, co-founder of the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, in a statement. “We are thrilled to be working closely with the Mayfield AI Garage team and offer students unparalleled access to the resources needed to build successful companies.”

UC Berkeley has long been a leader in 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.

Mayfield has been associated with founders from day zero who see limitless possibilities where others see constraints. Drawing on 55 years of company-building heritage and a people-first philosophy, Mayfield brings founder-to-founder expertise to its startups. Mayfield has 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 ideation-stage construction. AI Teammate companies. This program grew out of Mayfield’s 40-year track record of working with entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs). Our EIR program is the launchpad for many successful companies, and we’re bringing this proven model to UC Berkeley, providing the same high-touch support and resources to student founders.

I asked Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield Fund, why it’s good to start young in an AI business while students are still in college.

“I have been investing for more than two decades and noticed something interesting: the most innovative companies often come from young founders who face the problems of a “beginner’s mind,” he said in a message to GamesBeat. “History shows that some of the most successful companies, like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, were started by students who were not forced into conventional thinking. In the age of AI, being young is a superpower.

He added, “Today’s students are growing up with AI; they build with great language models like others use spreadsheets and imagine applications that others might dismiss as impossible. The technical talent coming out of UC Berkeley today is amazing – they bring fresh perspectives to difficult problems. These students have published papers on foundational AI models, won international competitions, and many are already working on projects that could be the next breakthrough in AI.

I also asked how many deals can happen in an hour.

“We have selected three teams of students to participate in the Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley program, but this is only the beginning of a broader vision,” Chaddha said. “Each team gets a stipend and access to valuable tools and resources, but more importantly, they get mentorship from our team and access to our entire ecosystem to help move from idea to off to a perfect start.”

And he said, “Through our partnership with Nvidia and Microsoft, these teams will get direct access to cutting-edge AI infrastructure and technical expertise. Being part of UC Berkeley SkyDeck’s Pad-13 program so is innovation — it puts these founders at the center of UC Berkeley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting them with other founders, faculty, and SkyDeck’s network of advisors industry.

And I asked about the 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 our approach to the Mayfield AI Garage program at Berkeley is different. Rather than taking a broad approach, we a launchpad for three student teams to explore whether their AI ideas can become companies – with no strings attached. We don’t take equity or need to be involved; instead, we provide us and capital, mentoring from our team, and access to our entire network at this stage of idea exploration.

He added, “Training large language models or running many experiments can be very expensive. Accessing resources such as Microsoft Azure compute credits or Nvidia’s Inception program requires a venture-backed company, which can be a significant barrier to students.We remove these barriers entirely.Teams also gain access to Berkeley Skydeck’s Pad-13 incubator program.

And he concluded 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, especially in areas such as foundational models, data, middleware and tooling, and human-AI interaction will partner with UC Berkeley’s CDSS and SkyDeck to make Berkeley’s Mayfield AI Garage a launchpad for student builders building the future of AI.