Mayfield and Startup Grind Announce the 2025 Mayfield | Divot AI List Honorees

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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 1, 2025--

Mayfield, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, and Divot, an initiative by the global entrepreneurial community Startup Grind, today unveiled the 2025 Mayfield | Divot AI List, celebrating 50 rising stars and emerging leaders shaping the future of artificial intelligence. The honorees include innovators, builders, researchers, founders, policy makers, and media voices shaping the future of AI. See the complete list here.

Each honoree was selected on four key criteria: the significance of their contributions to the current and future AI landscape, leadership in innovation, commitment to responsible and ethical AI practices, and the potential for meaningful impact, promise, or influence in the field.

“At Mayfield, we invest in people first. Behind every breakthrough in AI is a person – a founder, a builder, a researcher, a policymaker, a communicator – laying the groundwork for what’s next,” said Navin Chaddha, Managing Partner at Mayfield. “The Mayfield | Divot AI List recognizes these rising stars who are turning AI potential into measurable impact, and surrounds them with the platform, community, and network to scale. We’re proud to partner with Divot and Startup Grind to celebrate the people shaping the future of AI.”

A panel of respected AI leaders and builders shaped this year’s list. Judges included Dr. Fei-Fei Li, Professor at Stanford AI; Emily Chang, Host and Producer at Bloomberg; Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake; Rahul Vohra, Founder and CEO of Superhuman; Armon Dadgar, Co-founder and CTO of HashiCorp (IBM); Ion Stoica, Co-founder of Anyscale, Databricks and Professor at Berkeley; May Habib, Co-founder and CEO of Writer; Darren Mowry, VP of Google Cloud Global Startups; Logan Kilpatrick, Product at Google DeepMind; Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder and CEO of DevRev and Nutanix; Molly O’Shea, Founder of Sourcery; Howard G. Wright, VP of Startup Ecosystem at NVIDIA; Asha Sharma, President, CoreAI Product at Microsoft; Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic; Stefano Ermon, CEO of Inception Labs and Stanford professor; Philip Dawson, Head of AI Policy at Armilla AI; Sam Loesche, Head of Policy at Waabi; and Tanya Dua, Senior Tech Editor at LinkedIn.

“Startup Grind exists to give entrepreneurs a platform and a community. By joining forces with Mayfield, we’re amplifying the voices of the next generation of AI leaders,” said Derek Andersen, Co-Founder and CEO of Startup Grind, and host of Divot. “These are the people writing the next chapter of AI, and we’re honored to celebrate their work and bring them together in San Francisco this fall.”

Together with Startup Grind’s global network, the Mayfield | Divot AI List offers honorees instant visibility to over five million founders, investors, and entrepreneurs worldwide and exclusive access to the rooms building AI’s future.

Honorees will gather at the historic Golden Gate Club in San Francisco on November 6, 2025, for an invite-only celebration alongside judges, investors, and industry pioneers. The event will feature President & CEO of Y Combinator Garry Tan, and a day of meaningful content and connection with peers, press, and industry leaders.

About Mayfield

Mayfield partners with founders from day zero who see limitless possibilities where others see constraints. Drawing on our 55-year legacy of company building and people-first philosophy, we bring founder-to-founder expertise because we've built and scaled companies ourselves. We've celebrated over 120 IPOs and 225 acquisitions, including breakthrough companies like HashiCorp, Lyft, Mammoth BioSciences, and Poshmark. From our Silicon Valley home, with over $3 billion in assets under management, Mayfield is more excited than ever to back founders building the AI future. Join us at mayfield.com.

About Startup Grind / Divot

Startup Grind is the leading global startup community, supporting early-stage founders from bootstrap to Series A and beyond. With members across 150 countries, Startup Grind helps entrepreneurs build companies through events, education, and community.

Divot is the narrative-forward arm of Startup Grind—a community for those making their mark on the world. What began as a podcast has grown into a platform spotlighting legendary leaders and the next generation of rising stars, through storytelling, recognition, and connection.

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CONTACT: Media Contact:

Natalie Bartels, on behalf of Mayfield

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SOURCE: Mayfield

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PUB: 10/01/2025 12:30 PM/DISC: 10/01/2025 12:28 PM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251001617108/en