Navin Chaddha — CEO
I know what it feels like to start with nothing but a thesis and a whiteboard. I grew up in India, graduated from IIT Delhi, began a PhD at Stanford, and walked away because I couldn’t wait to build. I spent my 20s founding three companies: VXtreme (acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media), iBeam Broadcasting (NASDAQ: IBEM), and Rivio (merged with CPA.com). Being a 3x founder taught me that company building is a marathon, markets are unpredictable, and the only constant is the quality of the people you surround yourself with. When I crossed the table, I brought every one of those lessons with me. Twenty years later, I still operate in founder mode every day. I back founders primarily at inception, before the market believes. Under my leadership, Mayfield is investing $3 billion in AI, focused on the builders creating the future of AI. Most investors define ROI as return on investment. I define it differently: Rise of the Individual. My role is to help people reach levels they never imagined possible. Across my career, I’ve partnered with founders at 60+ companies creating more than $120B in equity value: - 18 IPOs, including Akamai, Lyft, HashiCorp, Poshmark, SolarCity, MakeMyTrip, Persistent Systems, Matrimony.com, and Tejas Networks. - 29 acquisitions, including Securiti.ai (Veeam), Nuvia (Qualcomm), Volterra (F5), Portworx (Pure Storage), CloudGenix (Palo Alto Networks), CloudSimple (Google), Gigya (SAP), StorSimple (Microsoft), and more. I’ve been named to the Forbes Midas List 17 times - including Top 5 rankings in 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024 - and recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. AI is the greatest opportunity of our lifetime - for founders, for businesses, for humanity. I love working with people who never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop giving their best. If you’re building the future of AI and put people first - let’s talk.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a venture capital expert with a focus on AI and technology startups.
Location: Menlo Park, California, United States
Experience: 29 yrs 2 mos
Skills
- Venture Capital
- Leadership
- Investments
Career Highlights
- 3x founder with successful exits to major tech companies.
- Named to Forbes Midas List 17 times.
- Investing $3 billion in AI-focused startups.
Work Experience
Upscale AI
Board Member (8 mos)
Minimus
Board Member (1 yr)
AttoTude
Board Member (1 yr 2 mos)
Gruve
Board Member (1 yr 2 mos)
Inception
Board Member (1 yr 8 mos)
ProRata.ai
Board Member (1 yr 8 mos)
Aurascape
Board Member (1 yr 9 mos)
Lumilens
Board Member (1 yr 9 mos)
Exaforce
Board Member (2 yrs 1 mo)
Sema4.ai
Board Member (2 yrs 3 mos)
NeuBird.ai
Board Member (2 yrs 5 mos)
MindsDB
Seed Investor (3 yrs 2 mos)
Auradine
Board Member (3 yrs 11 mos)
DuploCloud
Board Member (4 yrs 2 mos)
DevRev
Seed Investor (5 yrs 4 mos)
Alchemy
Seed Investor (7 yrs)
NUVIA Inc
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (1 yr 11 mos)
Alif Semiconductor
Seed Investor (7 yrs 1 mo)
Securiti
Board Member (7 yrs 3 mos)
InfluxData
Board Member (7 yrs 3 mos)
HashiCorp
Board Of Directors (2 yrs 10 mos)
Frore Systems
Board Member (7 yrs 7 mos)
Mammoth Biosciences
Seed Investor (8 yrs 4 mos)
Volterra
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (3 yrs 2 mos)
SeekOut
Seed Investor (9 yrs 1 mo)
CloudSimple
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (3 yrs 6 mos)
Portworx by Pure Storage
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (5 yrs 6 mos)
Fungible, Inc.
Board Member (8 yrs 3 mos)
Lyft
Board of Directors (5 yrs 4 mos)
CloudGenix, a Palo Alto Networks Company
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (6 yrs 11 mos)
Elastica acquired by Symantec
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (3 yrs 2 mos)
Poshmark
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (12 yrs)
Storsimple
Board of Directors (2 yrs 4 mos)
Brighter
Board of Directors, Series Seed Lead (7 yrs 11 mos)
SolarCity
Board Observer (2 yrs 11 mos)
Gigya
Board of Directors, Series A Lead (9 yrs 10 mos)
Matrimony.com Limited
Early Investor (9 yrs 7 mos)
Mayfield Fund
Managing Partner (19 yrs 7 mos)
Tejas Networks
Early Investor (11 yrs 4 mos)
MakeMyTrip.com
Early Investor (4 yrs)
Persistent Systems
Board of Directors (2 yrs)
Mobius Venture Capital
Entrepreneur in Residence (11 mos)
CPA.com
President (1 yr)
Rivio
CEO & Founder (2 yrs)
Akamai Technologies
Investor (2 yrs)
iBeam Broadcasting
Co-Founder (3 yrs)
Microsoft
Chief Architect and Director (2 yrs)
VXtreme
CTO and Founder (1 yr)
Education
MS at Stanford University
B. Tech at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
