SCET’s flagship pitch competition will return in a rapid fire virtual format on December 11 as Collider Cup VII, featuring pitches from this semester’s top student venture teams.
Get ready for the Collider Cup, UC Berkeley’s premier technology entrepreneurship pitch event, hosted by the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). Collider Cup VII is an all-star showcase of the best student venture teams from the Fall 2020 semester and will be viewable online in an accelerated virtual format.
The Collider Cup VII will be held on Friday, December 11th from 10:00 am – 11:30 am PST. The UC
The Collider Cup is a competitive pitch event between student teams from Fall 2020 courses offered by the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology. This semester, teams will present their venture projects from six SCET courses: Emerging Technologies and Social Impact, Alternative Meat, Deplastify the Planet, Data-X: Applied Data Science with Venture Applications, SCET Venture Lab Accelerator, and the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. In total, 850 students from 120 unique majors enrolled in these courses, representing all six undergraduate colleges and schools on campus.
This semester, SCET is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Pear VC, an early-stage venture capital firm. The top three teams from the virtual showcase will be fast-tracked to the final round of interviews for the $25K Pear Competition at Berkeley, plus, the top team will enter the final round for the exclusive Pear Accelerator S21.
Pear VC partners with entrepreneurs from day zero to build category-defining companies. They have founded 8 companies and invested early in startups now worth over $40B. They use this knowledge to provide founders with hands-on support in product, growth, recruiting, and fundraising. They have been fortunate to partner early with companies valued at $1B+ such as DoorDash (Berkeley-founded startup), Gusto, Branch, and Guardant Health.
Past teams from previous Collider Cups have gone on to participate in accelerator programs around the world, such as Collider Cup IV winner, Planted Poultry, now Sundial Foods, from Ricardo San Martin’s Alt.Meat class, who was recently named a grand prize finalist for this year’s Big Ideas contest. They are currently incubating with Nestle in Switzerland, where they, along with the seven top projects just participated in a pitch competition for Grand Prize honors and an additional $10,000 award. Their current product, a faux chicken drumstick, is currently being shop-tested in grocery stores in Switzerland.
Another team from SCET’s Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (BMoE), Sea Warden, placed second in Collider Cup VI and was recently selected to join Hatch, the world’s only aquaculture specific accelerator. They have since raised $155k and increased their team from 4 to 7 employees.
Our esteemed judges for the Collider Cup event include Jay Onda, Startup Investments for Orange SV; Afika Nyati, Founder at Lingual; and ShiaoFong Yin, Managing Partner at TEALE Group and Anjani Vedula, Fellow at Pear VC. .
Collider Cup VII will kick off with a welcome from Ikhlaq Sidhu, SCET’s Chief Scientist and Faculty Director; Tsu-Jae Liu, UC Berkeley’s dean for the College of Engineering; Richard Lyons, UC Berkeley’s Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, and Pear VC, Collider Cup VII partner. After hearing student pitches and judge feedback, SCET will announce Teaching Award winners for “Best Instructor” and “Best Course Coordinator” for the Fall 2020 semester.
Audience members will get the chance to vote for their favorite competing teams via Zoom polls. Students also have the opportunity to learn about upcoming Spring 2021 courses and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship & Technology.
About SCET
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology is the premiere institution on the UC Berkeley campus for the study and practice of “technology-centric” entrepreneurship and innovation. Since 2005, SCET has created the foundation of Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem including SkyDeck, the Fung Institute, the Engineering Leadership Professional Program, Global Venture Lab, and an extensive ecosystem of Silicon Valley and Global partners (see our history). Find out what has started here!
About Pear VC
Pear specializes in the science and practice of the 0 to 1 startup journey. We partner with entrepreneurs from the very beginning to build category-defining companies. Notable investments include Gusto, DoorDash, Branch Metrics, and Guardant Health. Our team has collectively founded 8 startups and we have been named in TechCrunch as “VC’s who founders love the most”. Visit our website at http://www.pear.vc.
Contacts
Keith McAleer, Chief Marketing Officer, kmcaleer@berkeley.edu
Melissa Glass, Manager of New Initiatives, m.glass@berkeley.edu