Selected in the Founder category, UDAY KIRAN CHAKA joins 50 founders, innovators, and media voices driving the future of AI
SUNNYVALE, CA (Oct, 1st 2025) – Sentry AI announced that its Founder & CEO, Uday Kiran Chaka, has been included in the 2025 Mayfield | Divot AI List in the Founder category, celebrating the top 50 emerging leaders shaping the future of AI. See the complete list here.
The Mayfield | Divot AI List, created by Mayfield, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, and Divot, an initiative of the global entrepreneurial community Startup Grind, recognizes innovators, builders, researchers, founders, policy makers, and media voices shaping the AI landscape.
Honorees were chosen based 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 potential for meaningful impact or influence in the field.
“Mayfield is a people-first fund, and we believe the future of AI will be shaped by those whose early work is already making a meaningful impact,” said Navin Chaddha, Managing Partner at Mayfield. “The Mayfield | Divot AI List was created to recognize rising stars across the ecosystem whose early work is already shaping what comes next. We’re proud to support and celebrate the individuals driving AI forward with purpose, vision, and impact.”
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 on the Divot AI List, we’re amplifying the voices of the next generation of AI leaders,” said Derek Andersen, Co-Founder and CEO of Startup Grind. “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 Uday Kiran Chaka
Uday Kiran Chaka, the Founder & CEO of Sentry AI, is on a mission to build a crime-free society using AI-based security solutions. Uday has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, holds 4 patents for innovative computer vision AI applications, and has presented at many industry conferences. Earlier in his career, Uday advised Fortune-100 companies as a strategy consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). His formal education includes an MBA from Duke University and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology.
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.
Media Contact:
Hien Nguyen
pr@smartsentry.ai
