Built By Berkeley - 22nd-28th July 2024

Welcome to the third Built By Berkeley, a weekly round-up of all funding rounds with a Berkeley founding team member. We started this with zero expectations and worries about the number of announcements in a week, but it has been wonderful to see the continued vibrancy of Berkeley founders, with $316M raised last week.

We believe Berkeley has the most entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world. However, we recognize that this ecosystem can sometimes feel fragmented. To help bring it closer together, we will announce all Berkeley-founded companies that receive funding each week. This is a community effort, so please let us know if we missed a company here. 🐻

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Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 10 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $316M of capital raised from the 22nd to 28th July

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If you missed the last newsletters or want to subscribe, you can look them up here. Reading the newsletter in your browser allows you to open the entire email. 

Closed Rounds

🩺 Imperative Care. $150M Series E.  🇺🇲 Developer of technology to help patients with strokes and other vascular diseases. 💰 D1, Catalio Capital, Intai, Montreux Growth.

🐻 Yi Yang, CTO & Co-founder. BS ME. Article

🧠 Autobahn Therapeutics. $100M Series C. 🇺🇲 Creating a new generation therapies for central nervous system disorders. 💰 Insight, Canaan, Blue Owl.

🐻 Keith Lenden, Co-Founder. Haas MBA. Article

🩺 Genedit. $25M Series B. 🇺🇲 Therapy developer via targeted delivery of genetic medicines. 💰 DSC Investment

🐻 Hyo Min Park, Co-founder. PhD Biology. Kunwoo Lee, CEO & Co-founder. PhD Bioengineering. 

💵 Affiniti. $10M Series A. 🇺🇲 Industry tailored credit cards. 💰 Emigrant Bank, Gilgamesh, Global Founders Capital. 

🐻 Aaron Bai, Founder. EECS. 🐻 Sahil Phadnis, Founder & President. EECS

👶 Joy. $10M Seed. 🇺🇲 Personalised parenting advice. 💰 Forerunner, Obvious Ventures.

🐻 Jacqueline Yuen, Co-founder. Haas MBA. Article

🤖 SirenOpt. $6.6M Seed Round.  🇺🇲 Transforming materials manufacturing blind spots into real-time Insights using cold atmospheric plasma. 💰 Voyager Ventures, TOMORROW, Courtyard Ventures.

🐻 Jared O’Leary, CEO. PhD Chemical Engineering. 🐻 Ali Mesbah, Co-Founder. Associate Professor. 🐻 Joel Paulson, Co-Founder. Post-Doc Scholar.  Article

💑 OurRitual. $5.2M Seed. 🇺🇲 Relationship platform for couples. 💰FJ Labs, Gaingels, Calm Ventures.

🐻 Nir Shtern, Co-Founder & CPO. Article

Onemednet. $4.6M Private Placement. 🇺🇲 Real-world data platform to power medical innovation. 💰 Discovery Capital, Off the Chain Capital.  

🐻 Jeffrey Yu, Chairman & Founder. BS Neurobiology and Neuroscience. Article

BoltWise. $3M Seed. 🇺🇲 Automated spare parts quoting using AI. 💰 Fractal Software, Range Ventures. 

🐻 Jie Min Wong, CTO & Co-founder. EECS. 

💻 BringYour $1.5M Seed 🇺🇲 Device security platform for secure browsing. 

🐻 Brien Colwell, Founder. EECS

Company of the Week:

SirenOpt, a groundbreaking startup, has announced its successful $6.6 million seed funding round. This innovative company, born from the halls of Berkeley, was founded by Berkeley PhD student Jared, postdoctoral researcher Joel, and Berkeley professor Ali. Originating from experiments conducted in the Chemical Engineering department, SirenOpt is a testament to the pioneering spirit of Berkeley's academic and student community.

The company has the potential to transform industrial efficiency through its low-temperature plasma and technology platform that monitors for defects in real time. Learn more about their revolutionary work here.

Our goal is to document the startup ecosystem of Berkeley-founded companies. Please share this newsletter with any Cal Bears in your network so we can crowdsource information about all investment rounds and job opportunities.

• Did we miss a company or want to announce a round? Add it here, and we will post it next week.

• Do you have a job you want to post from a Berkeley Company? Add here.

• Is there someone in the Berkeley ecosystem that you would want us to do a profile on? A founder, funder, or general startup person? Add here.

  What’s Next?

Eventually, we want to add any jobs at Berkeley-founded companies for people to apply to and ways in which founders connect.

Built By Berkeley is not affiliated with UC Berkeley, but maybe we will be one day if we get enough subscribers….