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. 🐻

More AI models….this time trained on the tree of life.

Berkeley scientists, in collaboration with the Arc Institute (founded by Patrick Collison of Stripe, Silvana Konermann and Berkeley Assistant Professor Patrick Hsu.)), have launched Evo 2 the largest AI model in biology to date. The goal? To predict the effects of genetic mutations, potentially even all types. In theory, Evo 2 could identify disease-causing mutations in human genes and even help design entirely new genomes.

The model was trained on 9.3 trillion nucleotides, these are fundamental building blocks of DNA and RNA. Think of it as an AI that "speaks" in the language of nucleotides rather than natural language. It’s a fascinating leap forward, and it feels like this wave of technology will have a gigantic impact on human health and longevity.

Also…not directly Berkeley so did not get into this newsletter but my recent thoughts on Stablecoins here.

Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:

• 5 Berkeley-founded companies funded

• $412M of capital raised from the 24th February to 2nd March

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Closed Rounds

🧪 Eikon Therapeutics. $350M Series D 🇺🇸 Drug discovery platform. 💰 General Catalyst, Lux Capital, StepStone Group

🐻 Robert Tjian, Co-Founder & Scientific Advisor. Professor Biochemistry. Article

📊 Metronome. $50M Series C 🇺🇸 Metered billing software. 💰 Andreessen Horowitz, Caffeinated Capital, General Catalyst

🐻 Scott Woody, CEO & Co-Founder. BA Physics. Article

💻 Archipelo. $12M Seed 🇺🇸 Code discovery platform. 💰 10X Capital, Global Founders Capital, Samsung NEXT Ventures

🐻 Matthew Wise, CEO & Co-Founder. JD Law. Article

🛡️ Andromeda Security. Accelerator 🇺🇸 AI-powered identity security. 💰 AWS & CrowdStrike Cybersecurity Accelerator, Lockstep

🐻 Ashish Shah, Co-Founder. Haas MBA. Article

🧠 Attune Neurosciences. Accelerator 🇺🇸 Neurostimulation products. 💰 Genoa Ventures, Joyance Partners

🐻 Rajiv Mahadevan, CEO & Co-Founder. BA Molecular Biology. Article

Built By Berkeley Tracker

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….