Matt and Lisa Sonsini’s $13.5 million commitment to fund a new Advanced Technology Entrepreneurial Center and proof-of-concept grants will expand a proven model for moving Berkeley research from the laboratory into the world.
Current faculty recipients of AIC-Bakar Fellows and CITRIS-CDSS Innovation Fellowship and AIC Awards. From top to bottom, left to right: Sarah Chasins, Greg Tikhomirov, M. Saif Islam, Claudio Hail, Zakaria Al Balushi, Paulo Monteiro, Zhaodan Kong, Ashok Gadgil, Roya Maboudian, Reza Ehsani, Gerbrand Ceder, Markita Landry, Theodore Holman, Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng, Robert Pilawa-Podgurski.
A transformational $13.5 million commitment from longtime UC Berkeley supporters Matt and Lisa Sonsini will dramatically expand the university’s capacity to translate cutting-edge academic research into ventures that address society’s most pressing challenges.The commitment launches the next chapter of a partnership with Berkeley that began in 2023, when the Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC) was founded with a simple but ambitious idea: to help more of Berkeley’s most promising scientific discoveries find their way out of the lab and into the world with targeted proof-of-concept grants and intensive, hands-on commercialization support. Combined with program support provided to date, AIC funding will exceed $16 million.The expansion of AIC will fund more faculty researchers seeking to commercialize breakthroughs in deep tech areas such as energy, materials science, chemistry, aerospace and mobility, advanced electronics, quantum computing, and AI. AIC will significantly expand the funding pipeline that has powered the partnership to date, supporting two new AIC-Bakar Fellows awards each year and five CITRIS-CDSS Innovation Fellowships annually for the next five years.
