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. 🐻
Berkeley alum and OpenAI co-founder John Schulman is playing musical chairs, having left OpenAI to join Anthropic he is now leaving Anthropic to join the stealth startup of Mira Murati the ex-CTO of OpenAI who has a startup in stealth. Expect a $1B+ fundraise to be announced soon (I guess), so I hope for the interest of this newsletter that John gets a co-founder spot.
AI could use some simplification. ChatGPT, now offers seven different models—a bewildering amount of choice for the consumer. Given its amazing intelligence, you’d expect a more streamlined experience.
We were promised AGI but all we got was 1,000 models with slightly different names…
For any Berkeley founders out there, Foundation Capital does a great early program - Cal Builds. Applications are due by Friday, February 28. As a reminder, it's free to join, and they take no equity - it feels like a no-brainer.
Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:
10 Berkeley-founded companies funded
$151M of capital raised from the 3rd February to 2nd February
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Acquisitions
🃏 Blok Sports. Acquisition 🇺🇸 Blockchain-powered sports betting platform. 💰 Khosla Ventures, Seaside Ventures
🐻 Mitchell Chun, Founder & CEO. BS Econometrics & Quantitative Economics Article
🔬 Specifx. Acquisition 🇺🇸 HVAC metadata management. 💰 Undisclosed
🐻 Ryan Martineau, CEO & Founder. BA Economics & Haas MBA Article
Closed Rounds
⚛️ AdvanCell. $112M Series C 🇦🇺 Radiopharmaceuticals for cancer. 💰 Brandon Capital, Sanofi Ventures, SV Health Investors
🐻 Andrew Adamovich, Co-Founder & CEO. BA English & History Article
🐾 Airvet. $10M 🇺🇸 Virtual pet care as a company benefit💰 Burst Capital, Canvas Ventures, Headline
🐻 Jeff Werber, Co-Founder & Chief Veterinary Officer. AB Zoology
🤖 Watney. $8M Seed Round 🇺🇸 Robotics for productivity including to do your laundry 💰 A* Capital, Abstract Ventures
🐻 Sean Cheong, Co-Founder. BS EECS Article
🏢 Tandem. $6.1M Seed 🇺🇸 AI-enabled office leasing. 💰Courtyard Ventures Fund II, 1984 Ventures, Collide Capital, Y Combinator
🐻 Kristen Gallogly, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer. BS Business Administration Article
🧠 PromptLayer. $4.8M Angel 🇺🇸 Tools for AI prompt engineers. 💰 Blue Trail Partners, ScOp Venture Capital
🐻 Jared Zoneraich, Founder. BA EECS Article
🐻 Bruno De Sa Moreira, Co-Founder & CEO. Haas MBA Article
🥤 PlantBaby. $4M Seed 🇺🇸 Plant-based beverages. 💰 Everywhere Ventures, Western Technology Investment, XFactor Ventures
🐻 Alex Abelin, Co-Founder & CEO. BS Business Administration Article
📦 Sotira. $2M Seed 🇺🇸 Surplus inventory optimization. They are also hiring engineers so get in touch! 💰 Coughdrop Capital, Night Capital, Ritual Capital
🐻 Amirta Bhasin, Co-Founder & CEO. BS Entrepreneurship Article
🚨 Beakon. Seed 🇺🇸 Threat monitoring AI. 💰 First Round Capital
🐻 Eric Liu, Co-Founder & CEO. BS EECS
💤 Somnee. Accelerator 🇺🇸 Sleep enhancement wearable. 💰 Khosla Ventures, Seaside Ventures
🐻 Ram Gurumoorthy, Co-Founder & CTO. PhD Article
Built By Berkeley Tracker
Date Built By Berkeley Started | Companies Funded | Total Raised ($M) |
7/8/24 | 284 | 28,795 |
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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Built By Berkeley is not affiliated with UC Berkeley, but maybe we will be one day if we get enough subscribers….
