Built By Berkeley

Deal of the Week:

A slow week for Berkeley companies, with just $43M raised across two companies. Still, congrats to Eagle Wireless and Mark Kvamme on a $30M round.

Eagle Wireless is a US-based IoT provider for automobiles. Interesting timing. It looks like a new US government ruling on Connected Vehicles is pushing to replace Chinese and Russian tech with alternative products.

Eagle Wireless is jockeying to be one of those replacements, hence the excitement around the regulatory tailwinds. Congrats on the amazing $30M round!

PE’s not your exit stratefgy. PE’s your GTM strategy

Venture is desperate for Private Equity (PE) to play white knight acquirer (see previous article on this). Bad news, if it happens the terms will be painful.

But the real opportunity is huge. PE-backed roll-ups are becoming the fastest-growing buyer of AI and software. Not the acquirer but the buyer.

The old PE playbook was cheap leverage and multiple expansion. The end of ZIRP killed this, so the shift is moving to margin expansion. The only lever that scales across a portfolio of 20 dental practices or 50 healthcare clinics? Software. AI.

We are seeing more of our companies use PE as a go-to-market (GTM) and I think this is just getting started. I read that only 6% of value creation in the last decade of PE has been via margin expansion.

PE has traditionally been the oft spoken about opportunity for startups to sell into due to the distribution to many portfolio companies. This previously came up short, but this is now changing.

PE isn't your exit. PE is your distribution channel.

Quick Takes

• For all you Berkeley-affiliated founders — check out 🐻 Bear Intros. It's an exclusive founder-investor matching platform for the Cal network. An AI agent analyzes your deck, interviews you, and connects you with investors who actually fit.

• Anthropic strikes again this time it was cybersecurity. Last week the company announced a new cyber agents and a large basket of cyber stocks dropped 10%. As discussed the markets are jittery and frenetic right now!

Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 2 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $43M of capital raised from the 16th Feb to 22nd Feb

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

Closed Rounds

📡 Eagle Wireless. $30M Series B 🇺🇸 Cellular IoT module manufacturer. 💰 Asymmetric Capital Partners, The O.H.I.O. Fund

🐻 Mark Kvamme, Co-Founder & Chairman. BA Economics Article

🔐 Kresus. $13M Series B 🇺🇸 Self-custody crypto wallet platform. 💰 Craft Ventures, Ripple, SKY VC

🐻 Trevor Traina, Founder & Chairman. Haas MBA Article

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….

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. 🐻