The Berkeley Startup Cluster was honored on March 13 at the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Community Breakfast where community leaders highlighted the strength of Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem. Chancellor Rich Lyons noted that “Berkeley is about ideas. Innovation is critical to our community,” acknowledging the Berkeley Startup Cluster alongside Berkeley SkyDeck, Bakar Bio Labs, and the Berkeley Innovation Zone, being constructed in Downtown Berkeley.
State Senator Jesse Arreguín, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, and Mayor Adena Ishii also spoke about the importance of collaboration between UC Berkeley and the City, including the recent Civic Innovation Challenge that brought students together to tackle local issues. The City's Chief Strategist for Sustainable Growth, Elizabeth Redman Cleveland, left attendees with the message that "Berkeley is not just a university to hire talent from, it is a fantastic place to launch and grow a business."
Watch the video explaining the Berkeley Startup Cluster's contributions to the community.
At a City Council work session on March 10, the Office of Economic Development (OED) shared an update on Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem and startups' contributions to local economic activity, including jobs, payroll, taxes, real estate leasing, and education for the next generation of technology workers (through the City's STEM CareerX program). Despite a challenging national fundraising environment in 2025, 88 Berkeley startups raised more than $1.5 billion in venture and seed capital, an increase from 2024. Over half of that funding came from three major deals involving Rigetti Computing, KoBold Metals, and Terabase, while most investments were smaller early-stage rounds, with a median deal size of $6.75 million.
The data show Berkeley’s continued role as a hub for research, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
Over one week in February, 70 UC Berkeley students took on critical civic challenges, grounded in real-world problem statements developed by City of Berkeley staff.
Empowering residents in high fire-risk areas to protect their homes
Improving access to digital information for people with disabilities
Increasing the number of local small businesses who apply to City contracts
Building awareness of housing support programs
Making it easier to reuse, repair, and safely dispose of unwanted items
Students responded with 15 project pitches, with 2 winning awardees that advanced into UC Berkeley's Big Ideas Contest accelerator, where they’ll get support from mentors to further develop their ideas, and a chance to win $20,000 to support the next phase of their work:
AccCo: AI-powered, human-in-the-loop software to help make PDFs accessible
ReMove: An app that simplifies responsible disposal and reuse
Chancellor Lyons & Mayor Ishii partner to ignite the next wave of innovation with Berkeley's venture capital funds
UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons and Berkeley Mayor Adena Ishii shared their joint vision for Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem at the Berkeley Innovators Summit at Cal Memorial Stadium. The partnership between the City of Berkeley and the University continues to create a powerful foundation for startup growth.
The evening brought together UC Berkeley professors (including Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology Professor Robert Tijan), founders, investors, and leaders from UC Berkeley’s shared carry funds including Berkeley Catalyst Fund, Berkeley Frontier Fund, Berkeley SkyDeck, BEVC, and the California Innovation Fund. The Berkeley Startup Cluster was proud to participate in the conversation and showcase the momentum across Berkeley’s entrepreneurial community.
A few highlights shared during the summit:
The expanded Bakar Labs program, once it opens its new site at the Berkeley Innovation Zone in Downtown Berkeley, will support up to 70 energy, advanced materials and biotech startups
More cross campus collaboration across engineering, law and policy, business, computer science, and public health, and between the campus and the City of Berkeley
The event was organized by the the Cal Innovation Fund, Berkeley Startup Cluster, and City of Berkeley Office of Economic Development, and sponsored by Cresa real estate brokerage.
The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed legislation to reauthorize the SBIR and STTR programs through 2031, restoring one of the nation’s most important early-stage funding pipelines for breakthrough technologies. For startups developing cutting-edge solutions in areas like AI, biotech, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing, these programs provide critical seed funding to move ideas from the lab to the market. Many Berkeley startups have benefited from SBIR/STTR support as they scale new technologies and create high-impact jobs.
The bill now heads to the House, with hopes for swift passage to fully reopen these programs after a five-month lapse.
TOMORROW, Thursday, March 19, 2026 2600 Tenth Street 5:30–8:30PM
Join BioPioneers, the Berkeley Startup Cluster & Wareham Development for an evening celebrating the female founders, operators, and leaders shaping what’s next in biotech. During Women’s History Month, we’ll bring together an incredible group of women executives for a candid conversation on building companies, navigating career inflection points, and supporting the next generation of leaders. The event will allow plenty of time to network with the Berkeley + Bay Area life sciences community.
This event is open to biotech founders & operators, students/postdocs, early-career professionals, investors/BD, or anyone excited about building the East Bay life sciences ecosystem.
RSVP to attend and use accesscode PIONEERPASS for free entry.
HumanX – one of the leading global conferences focused on the future of AI will bring together founders, investors, researchers, and enterprise leaders for three days of conversations on how artificial intelligence is transforming industries. The event focuses on real-world AI deployment, with sessions exploring topics ranging from generative AI and enterprise adoption to workforce transformation and the ethical development of AI systems. Attendees will hear directly from founders, operators, and researchers building and deploying AI at scale.
If you're a founder, investor, or operator working at the frontier of AI, this conference offers a unique opportunity to learn, connect, and collaborate with leaders shaping the next wave of the AI ecosystem.
Learn more and register using the code HX26p_berkeleystartupcluster to get $500 off a general admission ticket, a special rate for Berkeley Startup Cluster followers.
The 37th Annual Bioneers Conference will return to Berkeley and will feature an exciting line-up of visionaries, authors, and activists across a diverse spectrum of social justice movements.
Visit the website to sign up for updates and see the agenda.
March 26, 5PM Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, Oakland
Often called the “Academy Awards of the East Bay,” the East Bay Innovation Awards celebrate the companies and organizations shaping our region’s future through breakthrough products, services, manufacturing, and design.
We are especially proud to share that the Berkeley Startup Cluster will receive the Catalyst Award, and Copper will be recognized with the Technology Award.
On April 2nd, the next generation of global industry leaders will take the stage in Berkeley. We invite the investment community to attend Berkeley SkyDeck’s Batch 21 Demo Day, a special day dedicated to the breakthrough innovations emerging from our local ecosystem.
Selected from a rigorous global applicant pool, the Batch 21 founders represent the cutting edge of AI, enterprise software, and life sciences. Following formal pitch presentations, attendees are invited to explore the Demo Day Expo, where they can meet founding teams and engage with their technologies firsthand. The evening continues with an Angel Investor reception and a curated VC dinner for further high-level networking.
With $2.7B+ in follow-on funding raised by its portfolio companies, SkyDeck remains a vital engine for Berkeley's economy, a magnet for world-class talent, and a cornerstone of the broader Bay Area innovation ecosystem.
Accredited investors may request an invitation here.
When: Course sessions online April 20, 23, & 30 from 5-8PM Who: Any team (2 - 4 people) with a STEM technology based startup idea Application deadline: March 27
Do you have a startup idea? Are you looking for a proven method to validate your idea? Berkeley NSF I-Corps (run by UC Berkeley) offers a free remote 10 day course based on Steve Blank's Lean LaunchPad. The three evening sessions teach you to identify your top customer segment and value propositions, and accelerate finding product market fit. Outside of class, you'll do at least 20 interviews with potential customers as part of the customer discovery process. You can expect to spend 30-35 hours outside of class on interviews. Eligible teams that complete the course with Hub recommendation might also qualify for the National NSF I-Corps program, which includes a $50,000 National Science Foundation customer discovery grant, or the Hub National program with $5,000 in customer discovery funding. Teams that complete the National program have a much higher funding rate, including SBIR grants and investment, and alumni include Inkspace Imaging (SkyDeck/Bakar Fellow), Correlia Biosystems (Y Combinator), Intropic Materials (Activate Fellow), and Amber Bio (a16z).
Apply for the course. You'll be contacted 2-3 weeks before the first day of class to schedule a team interview with the I-Corps instructor.
Super kitted West Berkeley R&D suite. The modern concrete building was originally designed to house robotic CNC manufacturing, with super high ceilings and automated skylights. The ground floor includes a semi-private work area with a glass/wood conference room, two built-in/custom upholstered phone booths, a print/document storage area, full kitchen, two restrooms, a ventilated server closet, and a second open work space also with skylights. A second level mezzanine features an open work space and a bonus sound engineered editing suite.
Additional amenities include: fiber and high-speed ethernet (LMI or Comcast), HVAC and passive cooling, operable skylights, LED lighting, private parking, fully insulated roof, 600 amps available (VIF), and more.
Their recognition highlights the continued impact of Berkeley founders, researchers, and industry leaders shaping the future of technology and science.
Tina Self of Bayer, Rich Lyons of UC Berkeley, and Director of the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, David Schaffer, were all recognized for their leadership and impact across the Bay Area innovation ecosystem.
“The hardest challenge in robotics is not demonstrating intelligence in a lab, but enabling robots to rapidly adapt to economically-valuable work with industrial reliability,” says Jeff Mahler, Co-founder and CTO of Berkeley-based Ambi Robotics. With the company's newly-launched AI Skill Suite, powered by AmbiOS, they have made it possible for others to "add perception, reasoning, and physical world manipulation to diverse robotic hardware configurations.”
Last November, UC Berkeley celebrated the grand opening of the Roger Herst Quantum Nexus, a new Downtown Berkeley hub (2105 Bancroft Way) designed to accelerate collaboration, innovation, and workforce development across California’s expanding quantum ecosystem. The Quantum Nexus serves as a dedicated “interaction space” for quantum scientists, engineers, students, entrepreneurs, and policymakers and is designed to bring people together.
An AI that sees and thinks at the same time?! Researchers at Berkeley Lab have developed a first-of-its-kind spectral sensor that performs AI classification at the moment it captures light — no separate computing step required. By embedding machine learning directly into optical hardware, the device can instantly identify spectral signatures, dramatically reducing data, energy use, and latency. Potential applications range from real-time wildfire detection and precision agriculture to hazardous material sensing and point-of-care medical diagnostics.
Congratulations to three Berkeley leaders named to the San Francisco Business Times list of Top 100 Bay Area Newsmakers.
Tina Self of Bayer, Rich Lyons of UC Berkeley, and Director of the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, David Schaffer, were all recognized for their leadership and impact across the Bay Area innovation ecosystem.
See what other Bay Area leaders made the Top 100 Newsmakers list.