UC Berkeley has a long legacy of innovations and leaders that have created groundbreaking products, revolutionary companies, and entirely new industries. The university plays a critical role in California’s economy. The campus continues to expand the dynamic ecosystem that fosters research and its translation into real world applications, including incubator and accelerator space on and off campus.

• To date close to 200 startup companies have been founded to commercialize IP rights under license from UC Berkeley attracting $1.6B in venture funding and $51M in SBIR/STTR grants since 2005. 29 startups have had a successful exit via merger or acquisition, totaling in $8.1B in cash and stock options, while 66 Berkeley startups currently in the Bay Area employ 1,543 Californians & generate $195M in annual revenue.
• A drug royalty, monetized for $87.5 million, helps fund biological research facilities, students, faculty recruitment and retention, and new initiatives.
• According to several recent surveys UC Berkeley continues to be one of the leading universities to produce successful entrepreneurs. In 2017, Pitch Book ranked the top 50 universities that produced VC-backed entrepreneurs on a global basis — and for the fourth year in a row, UC Berkeley came in second among all research universities, before Harvard, MIT, Columbia and others.

Innovation

UC Berkeley has a long legacy of innovations and leaders that have created groundbreaking products, revolutionary companies, and entirely new industries. The University plays a critical role in California’s economy. Last year the campus continued to expand the dynamic ecosystem that fosters research and its translation into real world applications. As of June 2016, UC Berkeley owned:

Developing Entrepreneurial Talent

According to several recent surveys UC Berkeley continues to be one of the leading universities to produce successful entrepreneurs. In 2018, 

 

PitchBook ranked the top 50 universities that produced VC-backed entrepreneurs on a global basis — and UC Berkeley is consistently ranked second among all research universities, before Harvard, MIT, Columbia and others.

 

In 2019, CrunchBase published a survey ranking UC Berkeley among the top three universities from which the most successful company founders in the US had graduated.

Companies Founded by UC Berkeley Faculty and Alumni

Steve Wozniak of Apple, Gordon Moore of Intel, and Eric Schmidt of Google are among the many UC Berkeley alumni who have founded and run successful corporations. Other prominent companies founded by UC Berkeley affiliates: