Berkeley research is already moving from the lab to the marketplace. Berkeley faculty are working closely with several high-profile nanotechnology start-ups by providing core intellectual property and serving on Scientific Advisory Boards.
Berkeley has a number of programs that will give our students a unique set of skills, experience, and relationships they will need to play a significant role in nanotechnology start-ups, and leverage our proximity to the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem.
We have a certificate program in the Management of Technology that is joint between Engineering and the Haas School of Business. Students can take classes in areas such as entrepreneurship, high-tech product design, high-tech marketing and opportunity recognition.
Berkeley has a highly successful business plan competition that is in its eighth year of operation. The competition provides a network of resources for mentorship, team creation, education, networking and new venture financing for these aspiring entrepreneurs. A recent winner of this competition started by Berkeley EECS and MBA students (Timbre Technologies) was acquired for $138 million.
Berkeley engineering students have recently started VERTEX, an engineering entrepreneurship club that sponsors a technology contest jointly with Stanford, and seminars on approaching venture capitalists, IP issues, and interpreting financial data.
Finally, UC Berkeley (together with Columbia University and the Goldman Sachs Foundation) sponsors a national "social venture" competition. This encourages students to develop ventures that will have a high social return on investment in addition to financial ROI. This would be ideal for nanotechnology applications in areas such as clean energy and environmental monitoring.
Other Companies Affiliated with Berkeley Resarch
Nanomix: Nanomix is a leading nanotechnology company launching a portfolio of devices based on Sensation detection technology. These scaleable, nanoelectronic devices use ultra-sensitive carbon nanotube sensing elements combined with proprietary chemistries. These devices can be deployed across a broad range of industrial and medical applications where the attributes of nanodetection technology - low power consumption, small form factor, and high sensitivity offer significant performance advantages and enable unprecedented access to critical information. Nanomix is located in Emeryville, California.
Nanosys: Founded in 2001 by an experienced business team and world renowned nanotechnology leaders, Nanosys is an industry leading nanotechnology company developing products based on a technology platform incorporating high performance inorganic nanostructures. Our technology is covered by approximately 430 patent and patent applications and is currently being applied to address opportunities in multiple industries including energy, defense, electronics, computing and life science. Some current application areas of our technology include flexible electronics, lightweight and conformal solar cells, memory, and novel nanostructured surface coatings.
Quantum Dot: Founded in 1998, Quantum Dot Corporation (QDC) develops and markets novel solutions for biomolecular detection. QDC's products and services employ quantum dot (Qdot) particles, tiny semiconductor crystals that emit light brightly in a range of sharp colors. These nanometer-sized Qdot particles have unique, highly desirable properties that make them a superior detection platform for biology. QDC has invested many years in perfecting the methods for synthesis of high quality, high brightness quantum dots for biology. Quantum Dot was acquired by Invitrogen in Ocotber 2005.
Kalinex: Kalinex is an innovative startup company developing technology that emulates the sense of smell, which is the only human/animal sense that has not yet been replicated in small devices and systems. Its core proprietary technology has been in development for over 10 years, and it allows for the detection of molecules with extremely high sensitivity and selectivity. There is unaddressed need for such systems and a huge potential market in several industry verticals such as security (homeland defense), environmental monitoring, and petrochemicals.
Synamem: Synamem is an early stage biotechnology company which has developed a unique and highly enabling platform for academic and industrial R&D. For the first time, naturally fluid and functional biological membranes have been integrated into a scaleable discovery system, where membrane components retain their natural biological signaling capabilities. It is becoming increasingly evident that spatial rearrangement of receptors and signaling molecules within the fluid membrane environment are highly significant. In addition our technology allows for specific targeting of collective molecular interactions that are appreciatively different from isolated, individual binding events. In these ways it offers a unique discovery opportunity on many previously difficult to study membrane targets.
