UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck Accelerator To Send Funded Companies To Sacramento
Source: Sacramento Business Journal, Mark Anderson
Photo: Caroline Winnett, executive director of Berkeley SkyDeck, speaks in Sacramento to announce its deal with the Sacramento Urban Technology Lab. Sacramento Councilman Steve Hansen is to the right. (MARK ANDERSON, SACRAMENTO BUSINESS JOURNAL)
A venture accelerator started by the University of California Berkeley will send seven of its cohort startup companies annually to Sacramento in a new partnership with the city.
The Berkeley SkyDeck fund invests $100,000 into each startup that goes through its accelerator program, which is supported by major Silicon Valley venture capital firms, said Caroline Winnett, executive director of SkyDeck.
Sacramento’s Urban Technology Lab will work with the companies assigned to Sacramento to connect them with appropriate customers and help them navigate regulatory approvals, said Louis Stewart, Sacramento’s chief innovation officer.
“We will be knocking on the doors of UC Davis, Sac State, Los Rios and the University of the Pacific to find business use cases for these companies,” Stewart said.
Sacramento will offer the companies access to employees, available office space and support, Stewart said.
Sacramento is the first city to partner with SkyDeck, said Michael Jasso, Sacramento’s assistant city manager for economic development and innovation.
“The core of innovation is partnership,” said Winnett.
SkyDeck has 140 companies in its general program at any given time and about 50 companies in its accelerator, she said, adding that Sacramento will be getting funded companies from the accelerator program.
Since it started in 2012, more than $1 billion has been raised by SkyDeck teams, according to its website, which also notes that 11 startups have led to acquisitions.
SkyDeck is partnered with a dozen investors, including Bay Area venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Sierra Ventures. Most of those firms share half of the profits they make from the successful exits with the university, Winnett said. “They find it to be a good value proposition.”
One of the companies from Berkeley SkyDeck that has already come to Sacramento is Go360, a subscription-based ride-hailing company that serves Sacramento’s grid from downtown to East Sacramento.
Anuj Gupta, Go360’s vice president of growth, said the company is collecting sensor data in Sacramento’s most traveled streets for future driverless applications by serving current customers with an app-based car service. The company will begin its live demo with 50 customers in January, Gupta said. The company has launched from an office in the Ice Blocks development on R Street. The company’s model is to use the chauffeur service to break even on collecting the sensor data, Gupta said.
SkyDeck accepts less than 3% of applicants to the program, Winnett said. The program started out focused on entrepreneurship from students, faculty, alumni and employees, but in recent years it began accepting applications from other schools in the University of California system and some foreign companies. SkyDeck is a program of the University of California Berkeley. SkyDeck’s offices are at 2150 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley.