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Bakar Labs

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Charles Tait Graves
Powered by QB3 programming, Bakar Labs is the University of California's hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in life sciences and climate technology. Bakar Bio Labs is the University of California’s flagship incubator for life science startups. Bakar Climate Labs is UC Berkeley's flagship incubator for climate tech startups.

We Are Now Bakar Bio Labs

We have a new name! And logo. As the larger Bakar Labs organization expands into multiple locations and adds the climate tech vertical, our goal is to keep our branding as clear as possible. So we are now Bakar Bio Labs, as you probably noticed. Going forward, the general “Bakar Labs” title will be reserved for the parent organization we fall under. Beneath the Bakar Labs umbrella there are two units: Bakar Bio Labs and Bakar Climate Labs, for which our pilot program is now live (the facility, on the west side of the UC Berkeley campus, will open in 2028). Bakar Bio Labs will operate at two locations: the original, at 2630 Bancroft Way in Berkeley, and a new UCSF building in development in the Dogpatch neighborhood in San Francisco. Read post
Marco Lobba, Rachel Haurwitz, and Wei Wu

Event Recap: “Working With Strategic Investors”

“Between all these investors and companies,” Haurwitz said, “I think it becomes very clear over time that different incentives drive different interactions.” She advises building personal relationships to find out how and why each fund makes investments: some for profit, some for strategic reasons (like licensing or later acquisition); sometimes both at the same fund. (Haurwitz was the first student to work on CRISPR in Jennifer Doudna’s lab, she said; traditional VCs had no interest in CRISPR while CVCs – Dupont first among them – were knocking on the door, quick to see the long-term potential.) Read post

At Biotech’s Biggest Conference, UC Berkeley Shows Off Startups

In a way, biotech startup Editpep’s story is one faced by many new life sciences companies in a tough funding environment; in a way, too, it is so Berkeley. Co-founded by University of California, Berkeley postdoctoral researcher looking at ways to cure genetic diseases, an MBA student and a scientific disciple of CRISPR gene-editing technology pioneer Jennifer Doudna, Editpep last month secured an $8.4 million seed financing to take on pediatric brain cancer and other brain diseases. Read post
sophia lugo

‘You have to believe that you can be a leader’: Sophia Lugo, NHI’s 2024 Person of the Year

Sophia Lugo has made a remarkable journey in her career so far, moving from Silva Magnet/Jefferson High School in El Paso to Harvard University for undergraduate studies on biology, the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University for graduate studies in public policy, and Stanford University for her MBA, work with entities including the Boston Consulting Group and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, eventually becoming co-founder and CEO of a company aiming to change medicine as we know it. Read post
incubator

What to Look for in a Biotech Incubator

Gino Segre, managing director of Bakar Labs, confirms that there is plenty you can look at to see if an incubator is successful. “Tenant occupancy relative to other incubators, fundraising success of the tenants over time, and word of mouth satisfaction are good indicators of the operating track record of the incubator.” Reaching out to former incubees to have direct feedback on their experience with the incubator is one of your strongest indicators if this is the right direction for you. Read post
Bakar Labs in numbers
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The members of Allopartis in the QB3 Garage@UCSF incubator