Over the past few decades, the ecosystem for innovation has grown at UC Berkeley. Led by Rich Lyons, the Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer at UC Berkeley, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) ecosystem boasts countless centers, incubators, and accelerators. Across campus, the leaders that have collectively led the charge in building out an ecosystem to support UC Berkeley students and faculty in their entrepreneurial endeavors have come to be known as the I&E Council. With 85 campus leaders and counting, Lyons convened the First Annual I&E Campus Leaders’ Gathering this past Tuesday. The gathering, which was hosted at Berkeley SkyDeck, brought some 50 campus leaders together to mix and mingle. Many had previously only met on Zoom. The evening featured a special performance by UC Berkeley’s acapella group, DeCadence.

Reflecting on the growth of the innovation & entrepreneurship ecosystem at UC Berkeley over the years, Lyons said, “Groundbreaking discoveries from UC Berkeley are redefining the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Innovative solutions to world-scale problems that fuse excellence in teaching and research, with a commitment to bettering our world, are the perfect fit for the best public-missioned university of them all.”

Earlier this year, a list of 100 faculty founders from UC Berkeley was published to the university’s I&E webpage.

Berkeley SkyDeck Europe, Milano is holding its second Demo Day in Milan, Italy on April 27th, 2pm - 6pm CET. Europe’s top investors will gather to hear our international startups pitch their disruptive solutions in sectors such as AI, CleanTech, biotech, data, and more. An expo and networking sessions will follow. If you’re an accredited investor who would like to attend in-person, or watch the virtual livestream, register here!

Although the current economic environment has made fundraising a bit more challenging than in years past, SkyDeck startups have been forging ahead with fundraising. Founders like Sergio Torres of Alvva are “cautiously optimistic" on the heels of Demo Day as they kick off their fundraising journey. The San Francisco Business Times covered SkyDeck’s Demo Day in their article here.