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Built By Berkeley
$292M Raised by Lots of AI Companies
Xan Wood
February 03, 2025
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. 🐻
The big news over the weekend: Tariffs against China, Mexico, and Canada. It looks like the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada will be paused for now, but unclear on China. A Berkeley alum, Ryan Peterson (founder of Flexport, last valued at $8B on Jan ‘24), was in the thick of providing hot takes here via Twitter. With seemingly fast resolutions with Mexico and Canada, it looks like China will be the talking point over the next few weeks. The most meaningful initial impact will likely be in the cost of your Temu and Shein purchases with the ending of the De minimus rules.
What De Minimus meant is that any packages under $800 entering the US were not subject to tariffs. In 2023, over 1 billion packages were De Minimus, and 1/3 were Temu and Shien (Wow!). So, if this stays in force, expect these prices to rise quickly!
Other Fun Stuff
Want to work at the cutting edge? Canvas Ventures (me!) is hiring for a Berkeley Campus liaison - you need to be deep within AI and Berkeley start-up networks. You also need to be willing to hustle hard to talk to amazing category-defining Berkeley companies. That is really the job, but the full description can be found here.
Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:
12 Berkeley-founded companies funded
$292M of capital raised from the 27th January to 2nd February
💡 Got any ideas or feedback on how to improve this weekly digest? Just hit reply.
Acquisitions
🩺 Envision Technology Partners Buyout 🇺🇸 Immunization Information Systems for Healthcare. 💰 Undisclosed.
🐻 Steve Murchie, Co-Owner & CEO. BA Economics. Article.
💻 Volteo Group Buyout 🇺🇸 IT Consulting and Digital Transformation. 💰 Mastek, Techstars.
🐻 Ravi Nannapaneni, Founder & CEO. Haas MBA.
Closed Rounds
🧠 Bluwhale $100M 🇺🇸 Multi chain AI Agents💰 NewTribe Capital, Cryptonite Capital, Cointelegraph
📸 Cloudastructure $57M IPO 🇺🇸 AI-Driven Video Surveillance and Remote Guarding Services. 💰 Kopek Ventures, Plug and Play Tech Center.
🐻 Rick Bentley, Founder. BA Physics & MS Engineering. Article.
🏥 SafelyYou $43M Series C 🇺🇸 AI for Fall Prevention. 💰 Foundation Capital, Founders Fund, Swift Ventures.
🐻 George Netscher, Co-Founder & CEO. MS Computer Science. Article.
🦷 VideaHealth $40M Series B 🇺🇸 AI for Dental Imaging. 💰 Avenir Growth Capital, BAM Ventures, Spark Capital.
🐻 Florian Hillen, CEO & Founder. Visiting MBA. Article.
⚖️ Paxton AI $22M Series A 🇺🇸 AI Legal Research and Compliance Platform. 💰 AI Fund, Identity Ventures, Kyber Knight Capital.
🐻 Dr. Tanguy Chau, Co-Founder & CEO. BS Engineering. Article.
🐻 Jason Ryder, Founder & CTO. Adjunct Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering.
📊 Waterlily $7M Seed 🇺🇸 Eldercare Financial Planning Tools. 💰 Brewer Lane Ventures, Great North Ventures.
🐻 Lily Vittayarukskul, Founder & CEO. BA Genetics and Data Science. Article.
🏠 GrowXCD Finance $6M Round 🇮🇳 Financial Services for Underserved Areas. 💰 Lok Capital, UC Impower.
🐻 Arjun Muralidharan, Founder & Managing Director. MS IEOR. Article.
🧠 Rune Labs $4M 🇺🇸 Neuromodulation Data Platform. 💰 Moment Ventures, Samsung NEXT Ventures, Village Global.
🐻 Brian Pepin, CEO & Founder. MSEE EECS.
✈️ AURA $3M 🇺🇸 FAA-Compliant Airspace Network. 💰 Fortress Investment Group, Mudrick Capital Management, Tracker Capital Management.
🐻 Bill Tolpegin, Co-Founder & Advisor. BS
🍝 Homemade Pasta $50K Angel 🇺🇸 Marketing Agency for Creative Needs. 💰 Undisclosed.
🐻 Kristoffer Belau, Co-Founder & Chief Media Officer. Haas MBA.
🧩 Arize Undisclosed 🇺🇸 Observability Platform for Real-Time AI Model Performance. 💰 Battery Ventures, Foundation Capital, The House Fund.
🐻 Jason Lopatecki, Founder & CEO. BS EECS.
Built By Berkeley Tracker
Date Built By Berkeley Started | Companies Funded | Total Raised ($M) |
7/8/24 | 274 | 28,644 |
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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