Our Motto is People First.
We live by it every day.
We’re a venture capital firm with a 50+ year track record of investing at the inception stage in iconic enterprise, consumer, semiconductor, and human & planetary health companies.
We’re guided by our People First philosophy and are proud to have served as early investors to over 550 companies leading to 120 IPOs and over 225 M&As.
Our investment team operates from a shared set of beliefs and partners for the long term with entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas. We invest at the inception stage of companies, with selective investments in companies at Series B and beyond. We are currently investing out of our sixteenth early-stage fund, the $475M Mayfield XVI for inception stage companies, and our Select funds, the $400M Select and Select II funds for companies at Series B and beyond.
We currently have $2.2 billion under management and since our founding in 1969 have raised 20 funds.
We know that company building is a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re here to help.
We designed the Mayfield Value-Add Platform, or MVP, to cater to the unique needs of early-stage companies, providing support in three key areas of talent, marketing and business development. We follow a unique approach that is consultative, custom, and delivered by a senior team. MVP is a custom-designed immersion process to help jumpstart the journey from inception to becoming an iconic company.
Learn more about our promise to entrepreneurs.
Our Beliefs
Our motto is People First.
We invest in long-term relationships and support entrepreneurs through all the ups and downs of a startup.
Embrace the unconventional, the different, and the unusual.
It’s often the founders who don’t come out of central casting that have the grit necessary to succeed against seemingly insurmountable odds.
Great people evolve.
Almost no one comes into the job with all the skills and experience they need. We coach founders, and we look for entrepreneurs who have the passion for personal and professional growth. As an example, we operate Mayfield as a continuous-learning organization that keeps reinventing itself.
Be loyal to a fault.
There are lots of ups and downs in the life of a company. We stand by our founders when times get tough.
Company building is a team sport.
We believe in playing well with others. Mayfield brings a collaborative approach to investing and values our relationships with angel investors, seed and other venture firms.
Don’t beat around the bush.
Radical candor isn’t always popular but it’s often what’s needed. We believe in being direct and honest with founders at every opportunity.
Experience counts for something.
We love the big crazy idea, the orthogonal approach, the outsider who dares to reinvent an industry or create a whole new one. And when it comes time to build and scale those businesses, we believe our experience helping hundreds of companies achieve IPOs and acquisitions is critical.
All of us are better than any one of us.
Our whole firm is available to help founders succeed, no matter who leads a deal. We put our full weight behind all of our companies, because we believe that a group of people pulling in the same direction can achieve great things.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy is a core part of Mayfield’s DNA. Through our Access for All Program we have affiliated with leading community organizations including to address systemic barriers to opportunity.
We have also pledged 1% of our management fee and carry every year, which can amount to millions of dollars, to causes that support education, diversity, equity, inclusion, and food security.
Mayfield established a dedicated vehicle called the Mayfield Foundation over two decades ago, through which the Firm has been an active supporter of university programs, hospitals, and other non-profit institutions.
