3…2…1…LAUNCH!

Introducing the 2018 Cohort of UC’s Homegrown Accelerator

Over the past three years, LAUNCH alumni have raised over $33M in funding. In 2017 alone, a LAUNCH company completed a $540M exit to Adobe, a LAUNCH founder was selected for Forbes 30-under-30, and two teams were funded by Y Combinator. We did the math — LAUNCH teams are 20x likelier to be accepted at YC than the average startup.

And now, after seeing nearly double the average number of applications and more interest in the program than we have ever seen in the 19 years of our program, we have a brand-new cohort that we’re ready to show the world.

These 23 teams are incredibly diverse — ranging from EdTech to food to crypto– and we’re proud to say that our founders are diverse as well. The members of our management team (a group of 21 MBAs and undergrads who hail from 9 different home countries) gathered input from over seventy successful founders, angels, VCs, and businesspeople, and ended with a cohort in which over 40% of the startups have a female co-founder.

Without further ado, please meet the newest members of the LAUNCH family!

Bear Founders — Cal exclusive startup community

Bear Founders is a Cal-exclusive entrepreneurship community where people collide to form and grow startups. We provide opportunity matching, resources and community building events to help people and startups along their journeys.

Better Journey — social workers’ engagement platform

Better Journey is an engagement platform that enables social workers to accelerate outcomes and achieve broader impact for at risk communities. More frequent engagement between caseworkers and their clients leads to more open dialogue, establishment of trust, and increased client participation in and empowerment over reaching their goals. Through Better Journey, social workers can create customized milestones with individual clients, send targeted messaging to help clients reach those goals, and solicit information asynchronously to track a clients well-being and progress.

Celestek — satellite imagery for emergency landings

Celestek provides pilots with the safest emergency landing option in a crisis. We use satellite imagery to quickly help pilots find the areas where they would have the best possible chance of survival.

Clinsense — patient prediction software for clinical trials

Clinsense is a software platform that incorporates machine learning to provide individualized predictions for a patient’s risk of dropping out during a clinical trial. It provides clinical trial managers with easy-to-use real-time patient monitoring tools to enable proactive and targeted patient retention. The platform guides retention decision-making at the individual level and active trial monitoring at the program level.

Clymb Health — Lyme disease management platform

Clymb Health is a secure digital platform, backed by personalized machine learning, for users with Lyme Disease to manage their health data, share it with their doctor and connect with their community. By aggregating population data, with information from wearable devices, we can identify and predict disease triggers.

Collaboratorium — enterprise decision-making software

Collaboratorium helps leaders make more effective decisions by leveraging knowledge within the organization in a structured way. In increasingly complex environments and organizations, Collaboratorium provides a whole new way to structure key conversations and offers a unique value proposition that has demonstrated success in solving the pain of reaching shared understanding, making decisions and ensuring execution. With Collaboratorium, decision-makers are able to gather 10 times more quality inputs in a fifth of the time, organize knowledge, reduce decision-making time by 75% and facilitate close follow-up.

Crediation —Alibaba for SMEs in Kenya

Crediation is Alibaba for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in Kenya. Leveraging the power of AI, it instantly connects business buyers with suppliers of specific goods they look for, while allowing suppliers to get already interested customers via online.

Cruz Foam — sustainable foam made from seafood waste

Cruz Foam transforms seafood waste into sustainable and biodegradable foam. By upcycling this waste product, Cruz Foam will replace petroleum-based foams and help end the global issue of plastic pollution. Cruz Foam’s initial focus is on the foam core used in surfboards and the future potential applications are nearly endless.

CurricuPi — teacher tools for computer science education

As the demand for K-12 computer science education rises, CurricuPi makes the project-based learning of computer science more accessible to prepare the next generation for a tech-driven workforce. We empower educators by providing the necessary tools and support to effectively deliver hands-on education in their classroom or after-school program.

Datashark — blockchain-based data marketplace

Datashark is a platform where companies can buy data from people like you. Give us access to your entertainment watch history, location data, social media graphs, etc. and we can offer you $500 a year from the revenue generated by selling that information to data-driven companies. All data is verified and enterprises can search for the data they need like never before on our blockchain-based, machine-learning quality-assured web platform.

Flourish — savings app

Flourish is a mission-driven organization that helps individuals build savings habits and live a better future. The team is building a savings app that leverages mobile games and rewards to empower and motivate young adults to build healthy financial habits by tapping into their need for accomplishment, recognition, and entertainment.

Jobwell — job search CRM

Jobwell is a visual and super-intuitive job search CRM with integrated job-hunting and networking good practices to help jobseekers land a job faster and easier. With increasingly more personalized content and data-driven guidance, Jobwell will help jobseekers make smarter choices in navigating their job search and exploring career options. Our mission is to reduce friction and improve efficacy in bridging the path between ongoing education and employment, helping everyone discover, plan and land their next job with a greater sense of confidence and control.

Loom — digital heirlooms platform

Loom provides personalized prompts crafted by content experts designed to help families build their stories together. Our platform connects people, adding hands-on support to help families explore their heritage, record memories and artifacts, and share legacies with those we love. Loom provides a place to gather and share lasting memories through digital heirlooms.

Medinas — surplus medical supplies marketplace

The US healthcare system wastes hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus medical supplies. Medinas is a data driven marketplace that helps healthcare practices identify, and buy & sell their surplus medical supplies and other assets to help reduce healthcare costs and help practices save money.

NearFarms — management platform for small independent farmers

NearFarms is a platform to empower small, independent farmers. It establishes a marketplace for local farmers to sell directly to consumers. Additionally, it helps farmers improve their account and inventory management processes, leveling the playing field for them.

OpenHouse — microrenting marketplace

OpenHouse is a community marketplace for microrenting homes during the day. We create coworking communities… at home ! Flexible workers have access to a network of productive workplaces while hosts gain an additional source of revenue.

PediaCam — childhood health diagnosis app

PediaCam is focused on bringing physician-level expertise to the smartphone. The PediaCam enables home diagnosis of childhood health concerns, including ear infections, strept throat, and others.

Polyledger — cryptocurrency wealth advisor

Polyledger is a cryptocurrency wealth advisor that helps you create a diversified portfolio based on your risk profile. These portfolios include a mix of major cryptocurrencies, altcoins, and tokens, and are constantly adjusted based on market data. We’re a team from UC Berkeley that’s motivated to help investors easily manage their crypto portfolios within one platform.

PredictEV — blockchain-based social network for predictions

UnVig, LLC is building a blockchain-based social network called PredictEV. Utilizing a patent-pending reward system, PredictEV is a new breed of social media in which the excitement of gambling is seamlessly (and legally) merged with the social networking experience. PredictEV incentivizes users to share and identify expertise in a variety of fields that traditionally involve predictions for profit, including fantasy sports, sports betting, and stock investing.

Respira Labs — AI-assisted chronic lung disease monitoring

Respira Labs is an early-stage digital healthcare startup that is developing the first AI-assisted connected-self technology platform for monitoring, treatment and early deterioration prediction of chronic lung disease. We do this by actively removing background noise related to users’ motion, maintaining the accuracy of our sensor technology, and leveraging Machine Learning methods to recognize trends in a matter of milliseconds and notify users of oncoming drops of oxygen, allowing for preventive actions that reduce new flares, unnecessary emergency room visits and ultimately reduce medical costs.

SnapSupport Inc . — AI-powered instrument support

Delivering real-time instrument support to your field teams and customers powered by mobile, AI and analytics. End-to-end collaboration platform with live video and chat supported by task-based chatbot libraries and pattern analytics.

Social Filter — social media management service

Social Filter is automatic online service that uses Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision to help you clean your social media accounts and present your best self. In less than a minute, Social Filter scans your entire Facebook, Twitter and Instagram history and flags all inappropriate and risky posts, giving you the option to delete them. Social Filter uses technology to help you improve your personal brand, maintain a positive online image, and ultimately give you a better shot at your dream job or school.

Vision Science Labs, Inc. — improving binocular vision with games

Vision Science Labs creates 3D gaming apps to improve vision fitness. Our science-based apps can help students read faster, athletes play better, and professionals work smarter. We want to educate the public on the importance of having their eyes work well together and provide tools to help improve binocular vision.

Lastly, we want to extend a huge thanks to our 2018 sponsors for the support. If you are interested in sponsoring or partnering with LAUNCH, please contact monal_goodacre@berkeley.edu.