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. 🐻
Slow Week: Since starting Built By Berkeley, I have been shocked by the amount of capital raised each week by Berkeley founders. This week has been a little slower than previous ones, although I hear Perplexity is about to announce a massive funding round. Aravind, if you are reading this, good luck with closing the round and please give us a shout out on twitter!
Haas MBA Ranks #3 in Unicorns per 1,000 Alumni: According to research by Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev, Haas has 2.8 unicorn founders per 1,000 alumni. I've come across this statistic before, and it’s mind-boggling. Out of every 1,000 alumni, how many end up launching a company? 5%, 10%, 20%? My guess is that it’s less than 20%, probably closer to 5% or less (a research project I’d love to explore one day!). Assuming 5% of 1,000 alumni start a company, that’s about 50 company founders per 1,000 alumni. If 2.8 of these founders lead unicorns, that translates to roughly 1 in 18 founders with a Haas MBA starting a unicorn. Re-reading this makes me think you’d be crazy not to start a company if these stats hold up in the future!
Any founders out there? Check out Cal Build by Foundation Capital to be part of a small 8-company cohort.
Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:
6 Berkeley-founded companies funded
$18M of capital raised from the 4th November to 10th November
💡 Got any ideas or feedback on how to improve this weekly digest? Just hit reply.
Acquired
🐻 Dimitar Jetchev, Co-founder & CTO. PhD in Mathematics. Article
🎮 Space Ape Games. Acquisition. 🇬🇧 Mobile game studio. 💰 Supercell
🐻 John Earner, Founder & CEO. MBA, Haas School of Business. Article
🚗 RepairPal. $80M Acquisition 🇺🇸 Auto repair price estimator. 💰 CarMax Enterprise Services
🐻 David Sturtz,Founder. BA in Geography. Article
Closed Rounds
📡 Ursa Space. $10M Debt 🇺🇸 Satellite analytics platform. 💰 Citi Ventures, Hemisphere Ventures, New Enterprise Associates
🐻 Julie Baker, Co-founder & COO. BS in ECCS. Article
🧑🤝🧑 Augmental. $4M Growth 🇺🇸 Smart mouthwear for hands-free device control and conversational AI 💰 Berkeley SkyDeck, Carya Venture Partners, The House Fund
🐻 Tomás Vega, Co-founder & CEO. EECS. Article
🤖 Advex AI. $3.5M Seed Round 🇺🇸 AI Vision for manufacturing. 💰 PearVC, Emerson Collective
🐻 Pedro Pachuca, Co-founder & CEO. BS in EECS. Article
💬 Revi (Sao Paulo). $0.4M Seed Round 🇧🇷 WhatsApp marketing automation. 💰 Crivo, StaminaVC
🐻 Juliana Haddad, Co-founder. BA in Economics. Article
🔬 Danu Insights. $0.2M Seed Round 🇬🇧 Medical trial optimization. 💰 Creator Fund
🐻 Christopher Lucas, Founder. PhD in Psychology.
🚀 Above Space. $0.01M Crowdfunding 🇺🇸 Space station development. 💰 Space Ventures Investors
🐻 Jeff Greenblatt, Co-founder & VP of Science. PhD in Chemistry.
One We Missed
🤖 Loyee. Undisclosed Seed Round. 🇺🇸 Automated account research for sales. 💰 Merian Ventures
🐻 Jacqueline-Amadea Pely Co-founder & CPO. MS Visiting Scholar.
Built By Berkeley Tracker
Date Built By Berkeley Started | Companies Funded | Total Raised ($M) |
7/8/24 | 171 | 13,797 |
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.
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