Join us to see the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology’s top venture projects from the Spring 2021 semester. UC Berkeley’s brightest students will be showcasing their latest innovations for solving the world’s most challenging problems, even as the world continues its battle against the global pandemic.
Get ready for the Collider Cup, UC Berkeley’s premier technology entrepreneurship showcase, hosted by the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). Collider Cup VIII is an all-star showcase of the best student venture teams from the Spring 2021 semester and, similar to last semester, it will be viewable online in a virtual format.
Collider Cup VIII will be held on Friday, May 7th from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm PST. The UC Berkeley community and the public are welcome to RSVP for the Zoom in order to receive the official webinar dial-in details.
The Collider Cup is a competitive pitch event between student teams from Spring 2021 courses offered by the SCET. This semester, teams will present their venture projects from nine SCET courses: Real Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Building with Blockchain for Web 3.0, Technology Entrepreneurship, Innovation-X: Future of Industry Startup Lab, Deplastify the Planet, Data-X: Applied Data Science with Venture Applications, Product Management, Innovating Through Crisis, and AltMeat: Product Design of Plant-Based Foods. In total, more than 850 students from 120 unique majors have enrolled in these courses, representing all six undergraduate colleges and schools on campus.
Collider Cup VIII Grand Prize and Past Winners
This semester, SCET is thrilled to continue its partnership with Pear VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, for the Collider Cup VIII! The winning team of the Collider Cup will be fast-tracked to final round interviews for the exclusive Pear Accelerator, in which the Pear partners will work with up to 15 teams for 3-months before a demo day to hundreds of top investors.
Pear VC partners with entrepreneurs from the earliest stage and helps them 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, customers, 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.
Last semester, Team “KBBQ/Artemix” (by Byan Wong, Kelly Chou, Audrey Kim, and Magnus Gu) from the Challenge Lab: Product Design & Customer Needfinding: Alternative Meat course (INDENG 185), snagged the top prize and were given the opportunity to enter the final round for the exclusive Pear Accelerator S21. They created the Artemix mixer to help consumers make their own alternative meats at home! Second place was awarded to Team “Clutch” (by Kashish Juneja, Anmol Seth, Vignesh Sivaprakasam, Kathy Hoang, and Sebastian Reyes) from the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp course (INDENG 192). They worked on an innovative peer-to-peer delivery software to help people gain quicker access to personal care items such as tampons, pads, and condoms. Lastly, third place was awarded to Team “Kinesis.ai” (by Talia Arauzo, Simon Walser, Brian Fu, Jeremy Berkowitz, Sailesh Mohapatra, Sam Deverett) from the Data-X: Applied Data Science with Venture Applications course (INDENG 135/290), who developed a new computer vision system to make physical therapy more possible and effective at home. The top three teams from Fall 2020’s virtual showcase were fast-tracked to the final round of interviews for the $25K Pear Competition at Berkeley.
Collider Cup VIII Judges
Our esteemed judges for the Spring 2021 Collider Cup event include Gary Yin, Fellow at Pear VC and current Haas MBA student; Adithya Iyengar, Associate at The House Fund and recent Berkeley EECS graduate, Jay Onda, Startup Investments for Orange SV; and Andrew Byrnes, Director of Venture Capital at Micron Ventures and the AI Fund. Learn more about our judges below:
Gary Yin is a fellow at Pear VC and a current Haas MBA student. Prior to Haas, Gary co-founded an edtech startup that provides perks and benefits to K-12 teachers. He’s a former high school math teacher through Teach For America. After teaching, Gary spent time consulting at EY-Parthenon and as a data scientist at Blue Apron.
Adithya Iyengar, Associate, The House Fund, is a recent graduate from the EECS program at UC Berkeley and held a variety of roles in student organizations on campus. His most recent role prior to The House Fund was as an analyst at ACME Capital (formerly Sherpa Capital) and he has previously worked with the investment teams of DCM Ventures and Cofounders Capital.
Jay Onda focuses on Startup Investment activities for Orange Silicon Valley, the innovation office of Orange Telecom in France. He is currently focusing on the 5G-enabled business opportunities in both B2B and B2C sectors, cloud strategy, cloud gaming, and sustainability. He brings 15+ years of startup experience focusing on product management and UX and 10+ years of corporate innovation and venture experience.
Andrew Byrnes, Director of Venture Capital at Micron Ventures and the AI Fund – loves working with founders to build world-changing companies. He is also a former startup founder, cleantech warrior, and writer.
Collider Cup VIII Event Details
For our Spring 2021 event, we will kick off the day with a welcome and introductions from Ikhlaq Sidhu, SCET’s Chief Scientist and Faculty Director; Alper Atamturk, Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department, ; and Pear VC, our Partner for the Collider Cup VIII. We will then move on to the most exciting part of the event – learning from our student teams about what they have built over the semester. After hearing from the student pitches and judges’ feedback, we will also be announcing our Teaching Award winners for “Best Instructor” and “Best Student Worker” for the Spring 2021 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 the renowned Certificate in Entrepreneurship & Technology along with our two upcoming Summer 2021 and Fall 2021 course offerings.
Don’t miss out on hearing our trailblazing students pitch their innovative ideas and compete for the coveted Collider Cup VIII. The teams look forward to seeing you on May 7, 2021, at SCET’s Collider Cup VIII!
About SCET
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology is the premier 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).
About Pear VC
At Pear VC, we partner with founders from the earliest-stage and help you to build category-defining companies. You might know some of our larger portfolio companies including – Guardant Health, Doordash, Gusto, and Branch. We provide founders support with product, customers, recruiting, and fundraising. Our team has collectively founded 8 startups and we have been named in TechCrunch as “VCs who founders love the most”. Visit our website at http://www.pear.vc.