Built By Berkeley

Welcome to Built By Berkeley, where we announce all the funding rounds by Berkeley-founded companies. This is a community effort, so please let us know if we missed a company here. 🐻

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! The Berkeley undergrads have stormed to the global number one spot for companies founded by undergraduate alumni in the annual Pitchbook rankings.

Last year, it was neck and neck with Stanford, but this year there is a clear winner, with Berkeley having 245 (18%!) more companies than second-placed Stanford.

This is a collaborative rivalry…but it is nice to win.

We cannot rest on our laurels. At the graduate level, we are 5th, and at the MBA level, we are 9th, so there is a lot to do.

Why has it changed so much year on year? We believe this comes down to:

• Better reporting—resources like this newsletter correctly tag founders.

• Berkeley is a global AI center with cutting-edge research emerging daily, leading to a plethora of AI-first companies.

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Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 13 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $110M of capital raised from the 26th August to 1st September

💡 Got any ideas or feedback on how to improve this weekly digest? Just hit reply.

Closed Rounds

💉 DualityBio. Filed to IPO 🇨🇳 Drug discovery for cancer and autoimmune diseases 💰 Raised $139M to date.

🐻 John Zhu, Founder & CEO. Haas MBA. Article

🚌 Hopthru. Acquisition. 🇺🇲 Data analytics for public transit 💰 Swiftly

 🐻 Daniel Radding, Co-founder. BA EECS. Article

💻 Robust Inteligence. Acquisition. 🇺🇲 Enterprise AI security 💰 Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO)

 🐻 Yaron Singer, CEO. PhD Computer Science. Article

📋 OpusClip. $30M Series A 🇺🇲 AI video clipping 💰 Millennium New Horizons, Samsung Next, GTMfund, DCM.

🐻 Young Zhao, Co-founder. BA EECS. Article 

🧪 Thinkcyte $30M Series C. 🇯🇵 Hardware to improve single-cell analysis. 💰 Global Brain, Kirin, SMBC Venture Capital

🐻 Sadao Ota, Co-Founder & CTO. PhD Applied Physics. Article

🌱 Plant Path. $20M Series A 🇺🇲 Data-driven plant breeding for sugar alternatives. 💰 Undisclosed

🐻 Todd Wehner, Chief Science Officer. AB Botany. Article

🏗️ Planera. $13.5M Series A 🇺🇲 Planning & scheduling software for commercial construction projects. 💰 Brick & Mortar, Sierra Ventures, Sorenson Capital

🐻 Saif Lodhi, Co-founder & Advisor. MS Civil Engineering. Article

💰VRGL. $6M Series A. 🇺🇲 Tool for investment managers’ client investment proposals 💰 MissionOG, FINTOP, Fin Capital

🐻 Joshua Zimmerman, Co-founder & COO. BS Nuclear Engineering. Article

📋 Inventive AI. $4M Seed 🇺🇲 Automating RFPs and questionnaires. 💰 Sierra Ventures, Y Combinator, SOMA, General Catalyst

🐻 Dhiren Bhatia, Co-founder & CEO. Haas MBA. Article

🤖 Micro1. $3.3M Series A. 🇺🇲 AI recruitment for software engineers  💰 Companyon Ventures, Motley Fool Ventures

 🐻 Ali Ansari, Founder & CEO. EECS. Article

🎒AnswersAi. $1.5M Pre Seed 🇺🇲 AI-powered answers in education  💰 Array Ventures, Courtyard Ventures, Cal Innovation Fund, Dorm Room Fund

🐻 Shubhan Dua, Co-founder. Economics & data science. Article

🥵 Calectra. $2M Seed 🇺🇲 Electrifying heavy industry through heat storage 💰Orca Climate Fund, Wave Ventures, Prodeko Ventures

🐻 Nate Weger, Co-founder & CTO. PhD Mechanical Engineering. Article

♀️ Femna Health. Undisclosed Seed. 🇩🇪 Educational platform for women’s health 💰 Atreyu, Berlin Angel Fund

🐻 Maxie Matthiessen, Founder. Visiting Student Political Economy. Article

Built By Berkeley Tracker

Events

• The House AI Accelerator applications are open and more information can be found on their website here. Investment ranges from $200K to $1M. Open to all stages of companies

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.

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