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Innovation requires teams. Sometimes it requires decades of research, paired with a fresh perspective.
And on rare occasions, you find a place that has the energy to do that over and over again.
Marc Tarpening, co-founder of Tesla, touched on this in an interview stating, “anything unusual that you wanted to do, you could actually probably do it at Berkeley.” He said this while sitting at a discussion about the many accelerators and broad support for Berkeley students and alumni.
Or you might have heard of OpenAI, Databricks, or Perplexity. These are just a few of the Unicorns that have emerged from the ecosystem.
There is a rich history of Alumni and Professors supporting innovation and supporting students in making massive changes. There is also history of Alumni and/or Professors supporting one another.
And today Berkeley is #1 for generating startup founders.
Let’s keep the innovation going…
In the early 2000’s UC Professor Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, wanted to help. Malaria was killing millions of people and the drug costs of artemisinin were too high for developing countries. He determined Berkeley’s synthetic artemisinin could reduce the cost tenfold.
He worked with Carol Mimura in the IP Office to license this technology. Instead of Big Pharma, they chose to license it to a startup, this way it was the primary focus and they could help drive growth of that drug specifically. In 2003 he and four members of his lab co-founded Amyris Biotechnologies. This social impact caught Bill & Melinda Gates’ eyes. In 2004 they awarded a $43M grant to a partnership with Amyris and One-World Health. Through this partnership the drug was eventually tested and approved. This attention and growth led to a $20M series A funding for the company. Later, through further technology advancement, the company developed farnesee, a renewable hydrocarbon used to make biodiesel fuel. By 2010 Amyris was valued at $700M.
A desire to help, and brilliant minds. The company started with a goal, raised funds through many alternative sources — often the case for biotech — and then found a highly lucrative opportunity using its technology.
And, continues to make the world a healthier and safer place.
As of 2025, Keasling has cofounded two additional companies, LS9 and Lygos. He’s also proud his students have gone on to found over a dozen companies. In reflecting on this he said, “Berkeley is a special place,” I agree.
- Jennifer and Brian Maxwell founded PowerBar with support from professor George Brooks
- Jennifer Doudna founded Mammoth Biosciences using advances she developed in CRISPR, and continues to support students who are making startups!
- David Patterson developed RISC-V architecture and founded SiFive,. RISC-V is also used by Google, Meta, NVIDIA and others today.
Food, technology, biology: anywhere science is created, Berkeley is making an impact.
Berkeley has a historic tradition of helping advance technology locally and federally. As a University formed in 1868 it is nearly as old as California itself. In it’s work it has helped to promote and develop LBNL, LLNL, LANL — all national laboratories that support a wide breadth of sciences. Computing, defense, earth and environment, nuclear, materials, quantum, biotech, energy and physics.
This helps to magnify the impact, and reach of Berkeley. For startups and researchers it helps to amplify their support.
Lygos, Caribou biosciences, Sepion technologies are a few companies that have been founded partially out of these labs. In a future article I’ll dive into just how comprehensive all of the support for startups is. For now, we’re focusing on the support of the people, Berkeley alumni, professors, and students.
Berkeley and its Professors do not rest on their laurels.
One such example, which has seen a lot of news lately, is Ion Stoica. As Forbes noted, he’s the billionaire that won’t leave the classroom. If you dig deeper, he’s someone who is motivated by purpose and impact.
When asked about long term impact he responded, “I’ve always been driven by the hope of making an impact. Dave Patterson has a great definition of impact: broadly speaking, impact means changing the way some people are doing their work for the better.”
That’s simple. I like simple.
Even databricks, a $62B company was founded as a way to help others. For entrepreneurs that is how you make something successful, make something of value.
“We started Databricks when more and more companies started to adopt it. That raised the question of what would happen when the students working on it graduated. Could people still depend on it? Early on, before we started the company, we tried to find a company to donate the project to, without success. That’s why we started Databricks, the company, to sustain the growth of Apache Spark and give confidence to companies and organizations they can depend on it. It was the same thing with Anyscale. Starting companies from university research is not the goal, it is a means to the goal, which is to maximize the impact of the research.”
They were just trying to help, turns out that was highly lucrative.
In his work and partnering with students or peers it has led to:
- Conviva ($300M in 2017 — “We have the potential to be the next Databricks,” says Zhang, co-founder in a recent article)
- Databricks ($62B valuation)
- ChatBot Arena ($600M valuation)
- Anyscale ($1B as of 2021)
Not bad for one professor.
The genesis is he was adding value to others’ lives.
These companies help programmers, developers, and other companies manage their data and implement solutions faster. That means when you’re watching videos online, or interfacing with software, or the internet, you may be getting a better product because of what they have provided.
And this isn’t just him alone, he works with his department, his peers. People like Michael Franklin, with whom he co-founded AMPLab (Algorithms, Machines, and People Laboratory).
As a chair of a task force setup to address federal funding cuts one of thoughts is for the private sector to step up. Stoica is encouraging fellow professors to go after private funding, mimicking the model that has brought his own lab so much success.
There may be an opportunity in that as well, if the past is any indicator. Berkeley continues to push the envelope in entrepreneurship, and support. Significant resources are available to students and staff and these resources continue to expand.
Securing funding has always been a difficult process, and will continue to be. What ideas should be funded, how can you have the highest chance of success, who determines this? There is a private VC market that has its own intricacies. As discussed previously, shared carry funds can support this environment as well — and give back.
Cal Fund, and the other shared carry funds feel we can be part of this emerging trend. We are part of a much broader network of VCs and private funding, and part of a much smaller network of Cal’s shared carry funds. We match University of California world-leading research and technology with student and alumni talent to create a healthier, greener, and more sustainable world.
That’s our goal, promoting innovation across the UC system. We are another piece of the puzzle in helping Berkeley drive innovation. We think we picked a good team.
Think Big, Dream Big, Go Big.
Let’s make the world a better place.
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