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. 🐻

There’s nothing quite like learning a lesson through experience vs some age-old adage. I had that twice this week.

Lesson One: Back the team, not the idea.
I’ve heard this a thousand times. Nodded wisely. Even repeated it on panels. But apparently, I hadn’t quite internalised it, especially at the seed stage.

A while ago, I passed on a company called Conversion (formerly Relentlo). At the time, they were pushing in-game ads on Roblox. I passed. A friend vouched for the founders, said they were exceptional. I didn’t bite. Fast forward: they’ve reinvented themselves entirely and just raised a $28M Series A for what looks like an actual rocketship. 

(Incidentally a recent podcast and article featuring the founder of Abstract VC, who led this round.)

Lesson Two: Good companies are always expensive.
About two years ago, I tried to invest in a company. The CEO said the round had closed, but they'd let us in, at a 25% premium to the just-closed round. Felt a bit off. I politely declined.

Today? I hear they are about to raise at a $500M valuation and are growing exponentially…so if I had been able to invest at $19M valuation vs. the $15M I would have still been a happy camper with my 26x increase.

So lessons learnt and nothing better than learning these in the wild.

I said a while back that IPOs were back and it seems I wasn’t wrong. Figma had a massive IPO this week. They priced around $20B but closed their first day at $60B! If the price stays like this post lock up there will be some very happy VC firms (see below).

Congrats also to Berkeley founded Ambiq Micro that had a successful IPO this week and which doubled in the week. Expect many more IPOs in the coming months!

Finally…as I have been banging on the drum about SF being ‘back’ I would assume some very happy Figma and Chime employees will now either be thinking of their new startup or how to spend their new found riches in SF! Nice to see the office market continues to heat up with Nvidia and Ramp expanding in SF.

Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 7 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $117M of capital raised from the 28th July to 3rd August

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Acquisitions / IPOs

🚀 Ambiq Micro. $96M IPO 🇺🇲 Ultra‑low‑power edge AI chips. 💰 IPO

🐻 Dennis Sylvester, Founder. PhD EECS. Article

🌟 Indiegogo. Acquisition 🇺🇲 Crowdfunding innovation platform. 💰 Gamefound

🐻 Danae Ringelmann, Founder & Board. Haas MBA. Article

Closed Rounds

🖥️ Arbital Health. $31.0M Series B 🇺🇲 AI‑powered value‑based care platform. 💰 Flex Capital, Transformation Capital, Underdog Labs

🐻 Brian Overstreet, President & CEO. BA Political Sciences. Article

🧬 Juvena Therapeutics. $30.5M Series B 🇺🇲 Protein‑based therapeutics discovery. 💰 Alumni Ventures, Felicis, Mubadala Capital

🐻 Hanadie Yousef, CEO & Cofounder. PhD Bioengineering. Article

🌐 Conversion. $28.0M Series A 🇺🇲 Metaverse advertising automation. 💰 Abstract Ventures, Antler, Avenir Growth Capital

🐻 Neil Tewari, Co‑Founder & CEO. BS EECS. Article

🧫 Leadsynbio. $13.95M Growth 🇨🇳 Industrial biotech ingredients. 💰 GL Ventures, Sherpa Healthcare Partners, 

🐻 Xinkai Xiw, CEO & Cofounder. Post Doc. 

🔋 Virtual Peaker. $11.3M Growth 🇺🇲 Residential energy optimization. 💰 Chrysalis Ventures, Emerson Ventures, Susquehanna International Group

🐻 William Burke, Founder & CEO. PhD Mechanical Engineering. 

🧬 Pluristyx. $2.0M Growth 🇺🇲 Cell & gene therapy services. 💰 BroadOak Capital Partners, Creative Destruction Lab

🐻 Jason Carstens, Co‑Founder & COO. PhD Chemical Engineering. Article

📊 Vertical Bar. Accelerator 🇺🇲 Operational analytics software. 💰 500 Global

🐻 Sol Eun, Founder & CEO. MEng Industrial Engineering. 

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.

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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….