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How one founder plans to save cities from flooding with terraforming robots
Parts of San Rafael, a city just north of San Francisco, are sinking about half an inch per year. That might not sound like much, but altogether, it has meant that some neighborhoods — like the Canal District that borders the bay — have sunk three feet, placing them at greater risk of flooding from sea-level rise. San Rafael isn’t alone. Cities around the world are threatened by rising sea levels, with 300 million people at risk of routine flooding by 2050. The cost of building seawalls to hold the waters back could top $400 billion in the U.S. alone. A new startup is proposing an alternative: raise the city instead. Read post
BL for E&M News
Golden Shovels, Green Vision: A Collaborative Effort Breaks Ground on the Future Home of Bakar Labs for Energy and Materials
The facility, scheduled to open in 2028 and located on the west side of campus (Oxford Street at University Avenue, in the new Berkeley Innovation Zone), will feature state-of-the-art labs, offices, and collaboration spaces designed to accelerate commercialization of clean energy, advanced materials, and sustainable technologies. Bakar Labs is central to the university’s efforts to enable solutions to one of society’s most vexing challenges and opportunities: the global transition to advanced energy systems. Read post
Company News
FutureBio startup to make completely recyclable plastic cost-competitive
Biotech startup FutureBio, the first tenant of UC Berkeley’s Bakar Labs for Energy and Materials, hopes to produce and recycle a new kind of durable, biorenewable plastic at a lower cost than regular plastic. Its plastic is made from green materials, unlike petroleum-based plastic. It can be depolymerized, meaning it can be broken down into its building blocks or monomers and then recombined to make new plastic. This means FutureBio’s plastic is completely recyclable, whereas only small portions of petroleum-based plastic can be reused after it undergoes mechanical recycling. Read post
Company News
‘We want to change the world:’ Company says it is creating a new kind of plastic
FutureBio is tackling the problem of plastic pollution head-on by creating what its co-founder describes as a new kind of plastic. Different from both the petroleum-based and the biodegradable ones now in use, it is not only durable but also bio-renewable and easier to recycle, said Zilong Wang. “It proposes a different and a novel plastic, which is different from all other kinds of plastic,” he said. Worldwide, only about 9% of today’s plastic is actually recycled. Most of the rest, millions of tons, goes to landfills or ends up in the environment. Even the plastic that is recycled is sent to landfills or incinerators after one or two cycles because the quality of the material degrades. Read post
BL for E&M News
From Chemistry at Chevron to Investing in Clean Energy at BEVC, a Natural Progression for Joshua James
The instinct to roll up his sleeves rather than simply write checks is exactly drew James to BEVC. Founded by Risa Stack, Rowan Chapman, and Widya Mulyasasmita, the fund’s model is unusually immersive: it sits at the crossroads of Berkeley’s research depth and Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial speed. BEVC doesn’t just invest in companies; it helps form them, often spinning out startups directly from university labs. For investors like James, who combine scientific rigor with venture savvy, it’s a rare ecosystem — a place where they can stay close to the science while still driving real-world impact. Read post
News
University Hall Demolished For UC Berkeley Innovation Zone, Downtown Berkeley
Phase one will see the completion of Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials, a five-story academic facility designed by Gensler. The structure will contain a mix of wet laboratories and spaces for the purpose of supporting “startups rooted in chemistry, material sciences, and rapid instrument prototyping, propelled by artificial intelligence and machine learning,” according to UC Berkeley Capital Strategies’ press release. Read post
Symposium
Design, Construction, and Operation of Energy-Efficient Buildings
Buildings account for a significant share of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, from the carbon-intensive materials used in construction to the energy required for daily operation. Addressing these challenges requires bold, interdisciplinary innovation across the entire building lifecycle. This symposium will spotlight technologies and strategies to dramatically reduce both embodied carbon and operational energy demand. We aim to convene leaders from academia, industry, and startups to share research breakthroughs, scalable solutions, and commercialization pathways for sustainable construction and operation. Learn more
Company News
AIMATX Co-Founder Omar Yaghi Shares 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Omar Yaghi, a Jordanian-American chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry today, sharing it with Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Japan. The scientists were cited for creating “molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal-organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyze chemical reactions.” Yaghi is the 28th UC Berkeley faculty member to win a Nobel Prize and the fifth winner in the past five years. Yesterday, John Clarke shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 2021, David Card shared the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, while in 2020, Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Reinhard Genzel shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Read post
Tenant Spotlight
“Better, Faster, Cheaper, Greener”: Tenant Spotlight on AIMATX and Their New Materials to Save the Planet
AIMATX is a materials innovation company that’s using AI to design not only remarkable new materials, but also more practical, efficient paths to synthesize them. Co-founder Jennifer Chayes — who also serves as the Dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley — describes AIMATX as a “materials on demand” type of operation. “It starts with a customer saying, ‘I want a material with this, that, and that property,’” Chayes said. “I want a sneaker with this property. I want a face cream with this property. I want something that can transport a drug that would have been destroyed in the stomach down to the small intestine without being disrupted so it can be absorbed there. I want something to have very, very particular properties, and I’m not really happy with anything I find in online catalogs. So then you’d go to AIMATX to have the material made.” Read post
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Everything that you need, all in one location.
Startups need to focus on making milestones, not managing equipment.
Our mission is to support you in the creation of groundbreaking solutions for our planet. We foster innovation rooted in sustainability, working with visionary thinkers to build a thriving future for all.
Built for breakthroughs
At UC Berkeley
Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials sits at the center of UC Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem, with direct access to over 300 faculty in engineering, science, law, policy, and business—all advancing energy and materials research.
Just steps away are 40,000 students in top-ranked programs and a network of advanced core facilities. Startups can easily recruit top talent and collaborate with expert scientific co-founders.
Today’s best startups blaze a trail all their own, but they don’t do it alone.
They build their support network to help them navigate the multiple challenges they face. At Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials, tenants join a community of as many as 75 like-minded teams willing to share the scientific and business insights that help them advance. The incubator spans more than 145,000 square feet of lab and office space.
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Built for startups. For more than 20 years, QB3 has been the University of California’s center for innovation and entrepreneurship in life science and now energy & materials. Through pitch summits, seminars, symposia, podcasts, office hours, internships, and workshops QB3 educates, connects, and elevates the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
