Mayfield: the Silicon Valley VC backing AI teammates, from Lyft to Licious

Few VC firms can claim more than 56 years of backing category-defining companies — Mayfield can. Founded in 1969 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the firm has been part of 120 IPOs and 225+ acquisitions, including Lyft and HashiCorp. Its current creed: "People First. From Inception" — and its current obsession is AI: Mayfield is investing $3 billion in AI companies, with 70% of its investments made at inception.

Investment thesis

Mayfield is an early-stage firm championing founders building the future of AI — what it calls the "100x Collaborative Intelligence era," including AI teammates, which the firm frames as a $6 trillion opportunity. Current themes span human-centred AI, the data economy, the developer-first era, the semiconductor renaissance, cybersecurity and deeptech. In August 2026 the firm added partner Adit Singh specifically to expand AI infrastructure investing at inception.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

Mayfield manages $3 billion. Its 2023-vintage funds — Mayfield XVII ($580M) for inception/seed and Series A, and Mayfield Select III ($375M) for follow-on and Series B in breakout companies — were oversubscribed in weeks. For India, the firm raised two dedicated vehicles: Mayfield India ($111M, 2008) and Mayfield India II ($86M, circa 2014); India cheques were cited in the $500K–$10M range (2018). US cheque sizes are not publicly stated.

Notable portfolio

Global names include HashiCorp, Lyft, Marketo, NUVIA (acquired by Qualcomm), Poshmark, SambaNova Systems and Securiti.ai; the firm also backed Alif Semiconductors, acquired by Analog Devices for over $1.6B. In India, Mayfield was an early investor in Amagi — exiting with a 14x return — and backed Licious ($3M Series A in 2017, $10M Series B in 2018 led with Sistema Asia Fund), led the ₹90 crore round in Knowlarity with Sequoia, took a majority investment in the AngelPrime incubator, and backed MakeMyTrip, Persistent Systems, Bharat Matrimony and Tejas Networks. One caveat for founders: the India funds are legacy-era vehicles — the firm's current public positioning is US AI-focused.

People

Navin Chaddha, Managing Partner — an IIT Delhi graduate, three-time founder (VXtreme, acquired by Microsoft; iBeam Broadcasting; Rivio) and an 18-time Forbes Midas List investor — grew up in India and was one of Silicon Valley's earliest believers in Indian tech. Adit Singh (Partner, AI infrastructure, joined August 2026) leads the newest push, alongside investors including Rajeev Batra, Arvind Gupta and Ursheet Parikh. Vikram Godse, Managing Director for Mayfield India, led deals including Amagi, LendingKart, M1change and Enkash.

Credits and perks

Mayfield AI Garage is the standout founder programme: a $100M builder initiative for ideation-stage founders building AI teammates — zero equity at induction, a stipend during idea exploration, up to $5M funding per team, and a paired Mayfield investor plus founder-amplification support. Applications run at mayfield.ai. The Mayfield AI Garage × Berkeley SkyDeck programme (second year, announced February 2026) offers non-dilutive stipends of $25,000 per founder (up to $50,000 per team), cloud compute credits, legal support and mentorship for UC Berkeley students and recent alumni.

How to engage

AI-first founders can email [email protected] (published in the firm's own podcast materials); ideation-stage AI founders should apply via mayfield.ai. Otherwise, warm introductions to partners are the standard route — there is no public pitch form. No India office or India apply route is currently published; Vikram Godse remains the public face of Mayfield's India investing.