Press Release
December 6, 2022

Mayfield and Silicon Catalyst Form Alliance to Fuel Semiconductor Startup Innovation

Legendary venture capital firm powers renaissance of silicon

Menlo Park & San Jose, California, December 6, 2022 - Top-tier venture capital firm Mayfield and leading semiconductor incubator Silicon Catalyst today joined forces to foster startup innovation. Under the terms of their alliance, Mayfield will invest capital in and provide mentoring to the majority of seed stage companies admitted to the Silicon Catalyst Incubator/Accelerator and evaluate them for follow-on investments.

The collaboration follows Mayfield’s conviction in the renaissance of silicon, a trend that has accelerated in the wake of the plateauing of Moore’s Law. Over the last five years, Mayfield has partnered with the founders of Alif Semiconductor, Frore Systems, Fungible, Graphwear, NUVIA (acquired by Qualcomm), Recogni, and a couple of stealth startups. This follows the firm’s 50+ year track record of investing in iconic semiconductor companies such as Cypress, Inphi, LAM Research, LSI Logic, MIPS, Qtera, S3 and Sandisk.

“It is an honor to partner with Silicon Catalyst to nurture the wave of entrepreneurs bringing silicon back to Silicon Valley,” said Navin Chaddha, Mayfield Managing Partner. “The Silicon Catalyst team have been unwavering supporters of entrepreneurs across the semi ecosystem, spanning photonics, IP, MEMS, sensors, materials and life science innovation teams world-wide. They have their finger on the pulse of the major societal trends and technology inflection points that are powering this renaissance. Together, we are excited to watch many industries being revolutionized by the new wave of semiconductor startups.”

Details on Mayfield’s POV can be found here.

“Mayfield and Silicon Catalyst share the same goal of driving semiconductor innovation and startup company market success”, stated Pete Rodriguez, Silicon Catalyst CEO. “It is exciting to know that most seed stage companies will be eligible to receive $150K at admission into the Silicon Catalyst program as a result of our alliance with Mayfield. Furthermore, this will allow startups to hit the ground running in conjunction with free shuttle runs, design tools and IP from our more than 60 in-kind partners which include TSMC, Synopsys and ARM.”

As these incubated companies progress through incubation, they will be eligible to apply to Silicon Catalyst Angels and additionally receive matching investments of up to $250K per company from our new alliance. Finally, startup companies that received these investments and execute on their plans will be at the top of the pipeline for future investments through Mayfield’s regular investment funds.

About Mayfield

Mayfield is a global venture capital firm with a people-first philosophy and a 50+ year track record of inception and early-stage investing, partnering with founders to build iconic enterprise, consumer, semiconductor, and human & planetary health companies. Since its founding, the firm has invested in more than 550 companies, resulting in 120 IPOs and more than 225 acquisitions, and currently has $2.2B under management. For more information, go to www.mayfield.com or follow @MayfieldFund.

About Silicon Catalyst

Silicon Catalyst is the world’s only incubator focused exclusively on accelerating semiconductor solutions, built on a comprehensive coalition of in-kind and strategic partners to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of development. More than 700 startup companies worldwide have engaged with Silicon Catalyst and the company has admitted 90 exciting companies. With a world-class network of mentors to advise startups, Silicon Catalyst is helping new semiconductor companies address the challenges in moving from idea to realization. The incubator/accelerator supplies startups with access to design tools, silicon devices, networking, and a path to funding, banking and marketing acumen to successfully launch and grow their companies’ novel technology solutions. Over the past seven plus years, the Silicon Catalyst model has proven to dramatically accelerate a startup’s trajectory while at the same time de-risking the equation for investors. Silicon Catalyst has been named the Semiconductor Review’s 2021 Top-10 Solutions Company award winner.

The Silicon Catalyst Angels was established in July 2019 as a separate organization to provide access to seed and Series A funding for Silicon Catalyst portfolio companies.

More information is available at www.siliconcatalyst.uk, www.siliconcatalyst.com and www.siliconcatalystangels.com.