Entrepreneurship Funding and Resources

Funding

LDRD: For the LDRD application process and scheduled deadlines, please visit the Lab’s LDRD webpage.

The DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT)’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) leverages R&D funding in the applied energy programs (the Offices of Electricity, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Cybersecurity, and Nuclear Energy) to mature promising energy technologies with the potential for high impact. These funds are matched with funds from private partners to promote promising energy technologies for commercial purposes.

Berkeley Lab IPO Innovation Grants are periodically awarded to Berkeley Lab-developed technologies determined to have sufficient commercial interest yet lacking funding for developments such as advanced/specialized testing or prototype development that would attract potential licensees and industry partners.

Local Resources for Entrepreneurs

OLLIE — Online Legal Library and Information for Entrepreneurs — a resource developed by Berkeley Law, walks entrepreneurs through the process of getting a business off the ground. Topics include Business Modeling, Capitalization, Managing Risks, Entity Formation, Operational Relationships, and Permits / Licenses.

Raymond Weitekamp, Berkeley Lab researcher, Cyclotron Road founding cohort member, and CEO of polySpectra, has launched PhD to CEO, a newsletter for the physical science startup community.  Sign up and receive Raymond’s Five Most Common Pitfalls of Deep Tech Founders. Read Weitekamp’s post, An Open Source Stack for Physical Science Startups.

The QB3-Berkeley Graduate and Postdoc Career Development Office, launched in fall 2018, strengthens professional development support for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biological sciences at Berkeley.  The office provides career planning resources and professional development opportunities on its website and through a Twitter account: @QB3CareerDev.

The Berkeley Gateway to Innovation (BEGIN) website provides a roadmap to entrepreneurial resources at UC Berkeley and the Bay Area innovation ecosystem and FAQs re: funding and related topics.

The UC Berkeley College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (CET) fosters high-tech venture creation. Classes, an annual competition, and programs serve engineers and scientists.

The Haas Business School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is a primary locus at the University of California, Berkeley for the study and promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation in management and new enterprise development.

The UCSF Center for BioEntrepreneurship offers classes, programs, and resources to assist entrepreneurs and leaders in the life science industry.

The UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship  is a springboard for innovations developed in university research programs. Through a broad range of experiences and programs, the Center helps science and engineering undergrads, graduate students, researchers, post-doctoral researchers and faculty move their ideas out of the lab and into the world. Programs are open to researchers from national and international universities.

The Cleantech Group, formerly the Cleantech Venture Network, pioneered clean technology as an investment category in 2002. The company provides market-leading research and data, industry insight, access to innovation and deal flow, news coverage, sales leads, networking events, promotional/brand-building opportunities and custom advisory services to accelerate the development and market adoption of clean technologies.

The Berkeley Startup Cluster (BSC) is a collaboration of UC Berkeley, the City of Berkeley, the East Bay Green Corridor, the Downtown Berkeley Association and private sector companies to establish an area in downtown Berkeley as a thriving destination for technology-oriented startups, investors, entrepreneurs and established tech companies.

Center for Commercialization & Entrepreneurial Training (CCET) is the education/training arm of Technology Ventures Corporation (TVC), in partnership with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Alameda County Small Business Development Center (SBDC) offers classes, consulting services and business planning resources for new and small businesses throughout Alameda County.

California Life Sciences entrepreneurship resources (CLSA)

Bay Area Incubators Contact List -possible office space, mentors and investment partners.

UC Berkeley’s Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA) site lists additional resources on its entrepreneurship ecosystem page.

Federal Resources for Entrepreneurs

For information on the Small Business Administration’s programs supporting research and development businesses see: http://www.sba.gov/sbir/

For funding opportunities for high risk, high payoff concepts – technologies promising true energy transformations, see DOE’s ARPA-E website: http://www.arpa-e.energy.gov/

Online Resources for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreurship.org is an online information resource for entrepreneurs and supporters of entrepreneurship. It provides information coded by stage of business development. EntreWorld is a collaborative project created and maintained by entrepreneurs and coordinated by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

The Stanford University Technology Ventures Program provides a free online collection of entrepreneurship resources through their “Educator’s Corner.” You can watch videos and webcasts of talks by prominent venture capitalists and entrepreneurs giving advice about how to raise funding for a start-up, how to negotiate valuations, learning to take risks (Larry Page), common mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and other relevant topics. To see all the resources go to http://ecorner.stanford.edu/index.html

Resources for the entrepreneur from the MIT Sloan School of Management can be found at: http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/

Online ratings and reviews of funding sources including VCs: http://thefunded.com/

Information on the components of a good business plan can be found at: http://www.bplans.com/

Blogs on emerging technologies/products: http://venturebeat.com/

Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE) fosters, supports and promotes entrepreneurship for women. http://www.fwe.ca/

Silicon Valley Forum (SVForum) sponsors Special Interest Groups (SIGs), monthly dinner meetings, free business clinics, seminars and electronic forums.

Local Accelerators

Berkeley Skydeck Accelerator is a startup accelerator and technology entrepreneurship center operated by the University of California, Berkeley.

Cyclotron Road
Applications for the next cohort will open this fall.
Supported by the DOE EERE Advanced Manufacturing Office, and with newly sponsored tracks by DARPA and the California Energy Commission, Cyclotron Road provides fellowships to support hard science innovators developing energy technologies that have potential for broad impact on the national, economic, and energy security of the United States. Cohort innovators are embedded in the Berkeley research ecosystem with an explicit mandate to bring their ideas to the point of commercial viability. Participants in the program receive