Advanced Materials

UC Berkeley intellectual property spinouts commercializing innovations in ADVANCED MATERIALS.

Calyx

Brief Description

Calyx is a materials science company that harnesses biology to provide low cost and highly accurate sensors for real-time detection and analysis of air chemicals in a variety of industries, including safety, healthcare, transportation, and food. The company offers commercial customers phage-based sensing and analysis of multiple gasses.

Company co-founders Ray Chiu and Benson Fan developed the company’s founding technology as a capstone project while they were students in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Masters in Bioengineering program. With the encouragement of UC Berkeley...

Ekso Bionics

Brief Description

Since 2005, Ekso Bionics has used exoskeleton technology to enhance natural abilities and improve quality of life. The exoskeleton industry leader, offering technologies that help those with paralysis to stand up and walk, enhancing worker capabilities globally, and providing research for the advancement of R&D projects intended to benefit U.S. defense capabilities.

Formerly known as Berkeley Bionics and Berkeley Exotech.

Inventors

Russdon Angold, Andrew Chu, Nathan Harding, Homayoon Kazerooni, Jean-Louis Racine, Adam Zoss

Company...

AsparaGlue

Brief Description

AsparaGlue has developed a superglue-like medical adhesive for external wound closure and internal tissue adhesion. The proprietary technology is the world’s only biocompatible and biodegradable medical superglue.

Inventors

Philip Messersmith, Subhajit Pal, Ji Soo Shin, Kelsey Gray DeFrates

Company Founders

UC Berkeley Professor Phillip Messersmith (Ph.D., Professor of Bioengineering and Materials Science & Engineering) and Subhajit Pal (postdoc, 2022-present, Messersmith Lab)

Timeline 2023. Company founded; joins Berkeley Skydeck...

MaxiVio Inc.

Brief Description

MaxiVio, Inc. is building next‑generation light engines by uniting novel quantum materials with electron and photon structures in a highly integratable form. The foundational photonic solution for AI ecosystems offers a new class of light engines that merge quantum materials with advanced electron–photon engineering in an ultra‑integratable platform. This breakthrough unlocks AI‑driven wearables, creates seamless interfaces between the physical and digital worlds, and cuts the energy footprint of data‑intensive hyperscale computing.

Inventors

Peidong Yang, Maria...

Silicor Materials, Inc.

Brief Description

Silicor Materials was a global leader in the production of solar silicon. The company was headquartered San Jose, California, with a research and development team located in Berlin, Germany.

The organization was founded as a development company in 2006 under the name Calisolar, with the goal of manufacturing low-cost photovoltaic (PV) solar cells from silicon designed specifically for the solar industry (“solar silicon”) rather than electronic-grade polysilicon. Among the company's founding members was solar energy pioneer UC Berkeley Professor of Materials Science...

Setex Technologies

Brief Description Setex Technologies is the leading manufacturer of gecko-inspired, dry adhesive solutions, offering innovative products that surpass traditional adhesives, gripping materials, and fasteners. Our Setex™ products empower product designers and engineers in both B2B and B2C sectors to create unique, first-to-market designs and address complex manufacturing challenges, enhancing both top-line and bottom-line performance. Founded in 2009 by Dr. Metin Sitti, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, nanoGriptech (now Setex Technologies) has built its expertise through nearly a...

RHA Technology, Inc.

Brief Description

The company was founded to develop sustainable, eco-friendly concrete composed of rice hull ash (RHA). RHA Technology, Inc. was born out of technology developed in the lab of UC Berkeley Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Povindar Kumar Mehta, who invented techniques for energy saving and waste material utilization in the manufacture of cement. Dr. Mehta was a world expert in the development of "green concrete."

Inventors

Povindar Kumar Mehta

Quick Flash Technologies

Brief Description Electrochromic Solutions.

Manufacturer of manually controlled transition lenses intended to protect eyesight. The company's product offers color-changing sunglasses that have lenses which will allow users to adjust the shade of sunglasses with e-tint technology and with a light sensor to control the electricity applied to the lenses, enabling long-term drivers and outdoor workers to quickly adjust the depth of the mirror in any condition for any light.

The company also has a product line of dynamic, energy-saving smart windows designed to change transparency based...

Kynikos Technologies, Inc.

Brief Description

Producing pre-lithiated graphite from recycled lithium-ion batteries. The company was born out of technology invented by researchers at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories.

Inventors

Abraham Anapolsky, Gao Liu, Andrew Minor, Julian Sabisch

Timeline 2016. Company founded

Kaiwood Technologies

Brief Description

Functionally integrated microanalytical system for performing fluorescence spectroscopy via fluorescence-excition radiation, typically from an LED, integrated onto a substrate along with a photodetector an an optical filter.

Inventors

J. Alex Chediak, Nathan Cheung, Luke Lee, Zhongsheng Luo, Timothy Sands, Jeonggi Seo

Timeline 2003. Company founded