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. 🐻

After mentioning Google last week, the stock jumped ~12% literally the next day. Of course, it had nothing to do with the reasons I laid out….It was driven by an antitrust development. But no complaints…sometimes it’s enough just to be directionally right.

A huge shout-out to friend of the newsletter (and personal friend) Michael LaFramboise (Haas MBA), who just announced a $10M seed round for his company Aurelius Systems. As drones get cheaper to deploy, the weapons needed to counter them have to evolve. Shooting down a few-hundred-dollar drone with a $100K missile is nonsensical. Aurelius uses direct-energy lasers to neutralize drones at a fraction of the cost. Having visited their first office, I can attest that Michael is all-in. He was literally living in a pod on-site where they were testing the lasers. Love seeing an idea go from inception to the next level. Congrats, Michael. (full description of what Aurelius is doing here on TBPN).

On a related note, it was interesting to see recent data from Ramp around the “996” debate (9 a.m.–9 p.m., six days a week). Some argue that in the AI wave, if you’re not working these hours, you’re falling behind. And SF’s work ethic does seem to have ticked up. Per Ramp’s data, corporate card spend on Saturdays and Sundays has risen meaningfully over the past year.

Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 10 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $264M of capital raised from the 1st Sept to 7th Sept

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

Closed Rounds

🤖 Augment $85M Series A 🇺🇸 AI‑teammate for logistics workflow automation. 💰 Redpoint Ventures, 8VC, Autotech Ventures

🐻 Artur Rivilis, Co‑Founder & CTO. BA Maths & EECS Article

🕶 Mojo Vision $75M Series B 🇺🇸 Micro‑LED + AI infrastructure for next‑gen AR. 💰 Vanedge Capital

🐻 Michael Deering, Co‑Founder & Chief Scientist. BA & PhD EECS Article

❤️ Daymark Health $37.5M Seed 🇺🇸 Virtual & home supportive cancer care. 💰Maverick Ventures

🐻 Alon Krashinsky, Co‑Founder. BS Business Administration Article

💫 Allocate $30.5M Series B 🇺🇸 Digital private‑market investing platform. 💰 Andreessen Horowitz, Basis Set Ventures, Portage

🐻 Hana Yang, Co‑Founder & CXO. BA Latin American Literature Article

🤖 Kite (formerly ZettaBlock) $18.0M Series A 🇺🇸 Agentic‑web infrastructure for autonomous AI agents. 💰 PayPal Ventures, General Catalyst, 8VC

🐻 Chi Zhang, Co‑Founder & CEO. PhD & MS Economics and Stats Article 

🔫 Aurelius Systems $10M Seed 🇺🇸 Directed‑energy anti‑drone laser systems. 💰 General Catalyst, Draper Associates, Alumni Ventures

🐻 Michael LaFramboise, Co‑Founder & CEO. Haas MBA Article

🌐 Symmetri $6M Seed 🇺🇸 Agentic marketing platform bridging brands & AI. 💰 Superset

🐻 Jed Putterman, Co‑Founder & Head of Eng. BS Article

🧬 Angiocrine Bioscience $2.1M Seed 🇺🇸 Regenerative cell therapy platform using engineered endothelial cells. 💰 Undisclosed 

🐻 Geoff Davis, Co‑Founder & Chief Scientific Officer. PhD Immunology Article

⚡ Lexe Undisclosed 🇺🇸 Self‑custodial Bitcoin & Lightning mobile wallet. 💰 Undisclosed

🐻 Max Fang, CEO & Co‑Founder. BS EECS

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….