Navin Chaddha, the managing partner of Mayfield Fund, a 55-year-old venture capital firm, has a unique approach to investing, often diverging from the strategies of other well-established firms. When Mayfield raised a $955 million fund last year, Chaddha emphasized the importance of innovation over imitation, stating that “copying someone else’s strategy leads to failure.”
In line with this philosophy, Mayfield is now launching a new initiative called AI Garage, a $100 million program aimed at early-stage entrepreneurs interested in building companies focused on “AI teammates.”
AI Garage is designed to stand out from traditional accelerators and pre-seed programs like Y Combinator, Sequoia’s Arc, or Greylock’s Edge by modeling itself on Mayfield’s long-standing Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) experience. For the past four decades, Mayfield has recruited one or two EIRs each year, guiding them from a raw concept to a viable, fundable company.
With AI Garage, Mayfield aims to expand and formalize its EIR approach by inviting up to five potential founders to work within its office every six months. Unlike traditional accelerators, AI Garage participants won’t receive funding on their first day. However, once their business plans are developed with the support of Mayfield’s partners and teams specializing in marketing, talent acquisition, and business development, they will have access to funding ranging from $1 million to $5 million.
Chaddha’s motivation for expanding the EIR program stems from his desire to gain early access to AI startups, particularly those focused on what he describes as “AI teammates.” According to Chaddha, these teammates differ from traditional AI tools like copilots or agents. While copilots or agents may answer questions or automate tasks, AI teammates are designed to collaborate with humans on complex tasks, aiming for a shared outcome. “AI teammates are digital companions that elevate human capabilities, ushering in a new era of collaborative intelligence,” he explained.
Chaddha acknowledges that terms like “copilot,” “agent,” and “teammate” are often used interchangeably but believes that positioning AI applications as “teammates” helps make them appear more approachable and human-friendly.
“We see countless opportunities for AI teammates to work alongside humans, shaping the future of work across various sectors, including product development, engineering, data analysis, sales and marketing, customer service, IT, finance, HR, legal, and more,” Chaddha noted.
Mayfield has already invested in several companies building AI teammates, such as DevRev (focused on customer service AI), Docket (an AI sales engineer), and NeuBird (an AI for site reliability engineering). In NeuBird’s case, the AI assists human site reliability engineers by detecting outages, triaging problems, and troubleshooting. If the AI cannot resolve the issue, it escalates to human engineers for further assistance. “That’s a true example of an AI teammate,” Chaddha said.
Through this new initiative, Mayfield aims to position itself at the forefront of AI innovation, helping to shape the future of collaborative intelligence in the workplace.
