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Navin Chaddha , the loss leader and managing partner of 55 - yr - onetime VC firm Mayfield Fund , has a penchant for draw close venture investing in a elbow room that vary slightly from other make firms .
When Mayfield raised a $ 955 million fund last class , Chaddhatold TechCrunchthe firm did n’t need a multibillion - dollar fund because “ copying somebody else is strategy for disaster , scheme for failure . ”
The business firm is again trying to do something that it sees as unique . On Wednesday , Mayfield say it is launching AI Garage , a $ 100 million initiative for ideation - stage founders concern in building “ AI mate ” companies .
AI Garage wants to distinguish itself from accelerators such as YC or pre - seed programs likeSequoia ’s ArcorGreylock ’s Edgeby modeling the effort on its entrepreneur - in - residence ( EIR ) experience . For the past 40 years , Mayfield Fund has hired one or two EIRs each year and aid them turn a raw concept into a newfangled , fundable company .
With the newfangled platform , Mayfield project to scale and formalize its EIR programme bywelcoming up to five aspiring foundersinto its billet every six calendar month .
Just like with EIRs , AI Garage participants wo n’t encounter capital on day one , but Mayfield will allocate a minimum of $ 1 million and as much as $ 5 million as soon as the business architectural plan is hatched with the help of a business firm ’s married person and other support staff , including merchandising , talent and business growing squad .
As for why Mayfield decide to quintuple and validate its EIR syllabus , the resolution occur down to Chaddha ’s interest group in sire early access to AI app startup , specifically in the area he yell “ AI teammates . ”
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“ They have n’t even set out the company . We will help them start it , ” Chaddha said .
According to Chaddha , AI teammate differ from copilot and agent because they are more than bare supporter , which can respond questions or do natural action autonomously , like booking group meeting or offer refunds . “ Teammates collaborate with humans on complex tasks to accomplish a shared destination , ” he sound out . “ AI teammates are digital fellow traveler that elevate humans to superhumans . They are going to take us into a new era of collaborative word . ”
Although the terms “ copilot , ” “ broker ” and “ mate ” can be used interchangeably , labeling an AI app as a teammate can be seen as a canny selling manoeuvre because it just seems more human - friendly .
“ We believe there are interminable chance for AI teammates to get together with humans and to shape the time to come of our workplace by having AI work out together with humans in many area , including production and engineering , data point , sale and merchandising , client service , IT and security , finance , 60 minutes , legal and many administrative functions , ” Chaddha said .
Mayfield has already vest in nearly a twelve AI mate companies , including DevRev ( customer service funding AI),Docket(an AI sales agreement applied scientist ) andNeuBird(site reliability AI engineer . )
In NeuBird ’s eccentric , human site reliability engineers separate its AI to notice any site outages , and then triage and troubleshoot trouble . If the AI identify it ca n’t ready the problem , it phone human engineers for help . “ That ’s an exercise of a teammate , ” Chaddha enounce .
