UCSB startups don’t seem to take summer vacations. While many of us were taking it easy and enjoying the season, our Gaucho entrepreneurs were running at full throttle. Most of the action took place in the last month of summer, so I have a feeling that they’ve been working hard all season.
Funding data provided by PitchBook
LungLife AI - IPO
LungLife AI, co-founded by one of UCSB’s Nobel prize winners, Alan Heeger, uses artificial intelligence to enhance the early detection of lung cancer. In early July, the company raised $23.68 million (17 million GBP) in its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. This raised the company’s pre-money valuation to $38.78 million. The company will use the funds to further develop its LungLB® test and enhance its AI performance.
CEO Paul Pagano adds, "Our admission to AIM and the proceeds from the fundraising will put the company in a strong position to continue our work with distinguished partners as we gear up to proceed to a larger multicenter pivotal validation study and secure regulatory authorization and reimbursement support".
NEXT Energy Technologies - $3 Million Grant Awarded
NEXT Energy develops transparent energy-harvesting window technology, an idea that's so good you wonder why every commercial building isn’t using their windows to harvest solar energy. The California Energy Commission agrees that it’s a good idea, and on August 18, they awarded NEXT Energy $3 Million to help scale and demonstrate the technology with the eventual goal of driving adoption. Co-Founder, President, Chief Technology Officer, and Board Member Corey Hoven earned his Ph.D. in Materials in 2010 at UCSB. He also earned a Management Practice Certificate that same year from TMP.
Transphorm - $5 Million Raised
The gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor innovators at Transphorm recently raised $5 million of development capital from a multi-billion dollar public company in Asia. The Transphorm founding team includes UCSB Professor of Electrical Engineering, Umesh Mishra. Transphorm has attracted additional attention this summer by teaming up with Salom and Qualcomm to develop a GaN-based Quick Charge 5 compliant phone charger (expected to release in Q4 2021) that will charge a smartphone to 50% capacity in five minutes.
Apeel - $250 Million Raised
Of all the money raised by UCSB startups this summer, Apeel Sciences raised about 90% of it. This month, Apeel raised an enormous $250 million round of Series E venture funding from the likes of Temasek, Katy Perry, Andreessen Horowitz, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe, and more. Apeels's CEO, and NVC all-star, James Rogers comments, “We’ll use our latest funding to help our supplier and retailer partners offer a differentiated experience to their shoppers: high-quality produce that’s less likely to go to waste at home. By using solutions by nature and for nature, and in collaboration with food supply chain partners around the world, we can ensure people everywhere have a great experience with their fresh produce while increasing the sustainability of the global food system.”
The round raised Apeel’s pre-money valuation to $2.2 billion. As Appel makes the transition from unicorn to duocorn (double unicorn?), it also stakes its claim as the highest-valued company to emerge from UCSB, according to available data.