Digital Instruments
Founded
In 1987 Gus Gurley co-founded the local high-tech atomic force microscopy (AFM) company Digital Instruments (DI) along with Virgil Elings, former UCSB Physics Professor. The AFM technology was the brainchild of Virgil Elings and fellow UCSB professor, Paul Hansma, who is the Co-Founder and Chief Inventor of Active Life Scientific.
UNIAX Corporation
Founded
UNIAX Corporation, founded by Nobel Prize winner (Chemistry, 2000) Alan Heeger and Paul Smith based on conducting polymer technology developed at UCSB. UNIAX was the first company to develop polymer OLED display.
Nitres
Founded
Nitres was founded by UCSB professors Umesh Mishra and Steve DenBaars as the first startup in the world to commercialize radiofrequency GaN transistors and LEDs.
CALIENT
Founded
CALIENT Technologies, the global leader of optical switching technology for communication networks, was founded by UCSB professors John Bowers and Daniel Blumenthal.
Wavestream
Founded
UCSB Electrical & Computer Engineering professor Bob York founded Wavestream, a manufacturer of high-power solid state amplifiers combining technology developed at UCSB (“deck” amplifiers) and CalTech (“grid” amplifiers).
Sirigen
Founded
After winning the UCSB New Venture Business Plan Competition, Sirigen became a developer of fluorescent biomarkers used in flow cytometry. The founding team included Brent Gaylord, Patrick Dietzen, and serial entrepreneur/UCSB professor, Guillermo Bazan.
Citrix acquired ExpertCity for $225 million, leveraging ExpertCity’s remote web-based desktop access, training, and customer-assistance products.
Active Life Scientific
Founded
Active Life Scientific was founded in 2007 by UCSB physics undergrads Davis Brimer and Alexander Proctor based on the fundamental research conducted by Paul Hansma. The medical device company developed a modern and accurate technology that assesses bone health.
LungLife AI (Cyvenio)
Founded
LungLife AI, formerly known as Cynvenio Biosystems, was founded to make personalized medicine a reality in the field of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Cofounded by Alan Heeger, their fully automated Liquid Biopsy system is a highly efficient platform that extracts and analyzes circulating tumor cells in under three hours.
Transphorm
Founded
Transphorm was founded by UCSB IEE faculty member Umesh Mishra to boost the efficiency of electrical grids by leveraging gallium nitride in the power conversion process. Transphorm continues to design and manufacture GaN semiconductors for high-voltage power conversion applications.
Aurrion
Founded
Aurrion, Inc. was founded in 2008 by UCSB alum Alexander Fang and Professor John Bowers. Aurrion is an optoelectronics company which specializes in integrating photonic and electronic components into silicon chips.
CytomX
Founded
CytomX was founded in 2008 by Frederick Gluck, Nancy Stagliano, and UCSB Chemical Engineering professor, Patrick Daugherty. With technology licensed from UCSB, CytomX developed its novel Probody™ platform, allowing for drug designs that selectively activate in a tumor microenvironment while reducing drug activity in healthy tissue.
Soraa
Founded
Founded in 2008 and born out of UCSB’s continued innovation in the field of LEDs, Soraa pioneered the field of growing LED crystals on a gallium nitride substrate (GaN on GaN). The all-star founding team includes Shuji Nakamura, Steven DenBaars, and Jim Speck.
Eucalyptus
Founded
Eucalyptus Systems, Inc. was co-founded by UCSB Professor Rich Wolski and UCSB alumn Neil Soman based on their groundbreaking research in computer science. The Eucalyptus system built both private and “hybrid” clouds, where public clouds and private clouds work together for the maximum benefit of the user.
NEXT Energy Technologies
Founded
NEXT Energy was co-founded by UCSB alum Corey Hoven based on technology innovated by Guillermo Bazan. NEXT develops transparent energy-harvesting window technology that passively generates solar energy for buildings.
Lastline
Founded
UCSB professors Christopher Kruegel and Giovanni Vigna cofounded Lastline to combat advanced malware and cyber attacks. Their enterprise security platform predicts malicious behavior before data breaches occur, enabling defense against advanced, evasive malware.
Wavestream
Acquired | $134 million
Gilat Satellite Networks, leading global provider of satellite-based broadband communications, acquired Wavestream for $134 million to leverage Wavestream’s technology in the government and defense marktet.
Aptitude Medical Systems
Founded
UCSB graduate students Scott Ferguson, Qiang (Jackson) Gong, and Jinpeng (JP) Wang founded Aptitude after winning the 2011 UCSB New Venture Competition. Aptitude improves on antibody technology through their own synthetic molecules that can detect or treat diseases in ways not possible with previous antibody technologies.
Soraa
Fund-Raised | $88.6 million
Soraa raised $88.6 million in Series B venture funding from New Enterprise Associates and NGEN Partners. This raised their pre-money valuation to $141.9 million.
Apeel Sciences
Founded
UCSB alumn James Rogers founded Apeel after winning first place in the UCSB New Venture Competition for its natural plant-based, non-chemical, solution that extends produce shelf life.
Eucalyptus
Fund-Raised | $30 million
Eucalyptus raised $30 million of Series D venture funding from lead investor Institutional Venture Partners, raising their pre-money valuation at $126.2 million.
PiMems
Founded
PiMEMS was founded by UCSB grad student Payam Bozorgi and UCSB professors Noel McDonald and Carl Meinhart who revolutionized titanium-based Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) devices.
Sirigen
Acquired | $80.89 million
Sirigen was acquired by Becton Dickinson for $80.89 million to enhance its instrument platforms and reagent portfolio.
Spectradyne
Founded
Cofounded by UCSB alumn Jean-Luc Fraikin and UCSB researcher Peter Meinhold, Spectradyne commercialized a revolutionary method of measuring sub-micron nanoparticles in liquid.
Eucalyptus
Acquired
Eucalyptus was acquired by Hewlett Packard for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its open source cloud solutions and strategy.
ShadowMaps
Founded
After winning the 2014 New Venture Competition, UCSB professor Upamanyu Madhow and his research group founded ShadowMaps, a cloud-based enterprise software company that solved for GPS “shadowing” with precise 3D environmental maps.
CytomX
Fund-Raised | $80 million
CytomX raised $80 million in its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol of CTMX
Aurrion
Acquired | $165 million
Aurrion was acquired by Juniper Networks for $165 million to diversify Juniper’s optical networking technology portfolio.
ShadowMaps
Acquired
Uber acquired ShadowMaps for an undiscosed amount to integrate the company’s occlusion modeling technology to improve GPS accuracy in dense cities.
TrackR raised $51.5 million of Series B venture funding, raising the company’s pre-money valuation to $150 million.
Apeel
Fund-Raised | $70 million
The company raised $70 million of Series C venture funding in a deal led by Viking Global Investors, raising the company’s pre-money valuation to $350 million. The funds helped establish satellite facilities and boosted R&D efforts.
Soraa
Acquired
Soraa was acquired by EcoSense, a leading LED technology company, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition ushered Ecosense into the commercial lamp market.
Lastline
Acquired
Lastline was acquired by VMware to strengthen its vision of Intrinsic Security by combining Lastline’s world-class team of malware researchers and VMware’s go-to-market security experts.
LungLife AI (Cyvenio)
Fund-Raised | $23.68 million
LungLife 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.
NEXT Energy Technologies
Fund-Raised | $3 million
The California Energy Commission awarded NEXT Energy a $3 Million grant to help scale and demonstrate their technology with the eventual goal of driving adoption.
Apeel
Fund-Raised | $250 million
Apeel raised an enormous $250 million round of Series E venture funding from Temasek, Katy Perry, Andreessen Horowitz, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe, and more.
C-Zero
Fund-Raised | $34 million
The company raised $34 million of venture funding from SK Gas and other undisclosed investors. They also raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding from ENGIE New Ventures in the same year.
Trasphorm
Fund-Raised | $40.9 million
The company had three fundraising events in 2022: $5 million of development capital from a multi-billion dollar public company in Asia, $23 million of development capital from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and other institutional investors, and $12.9 million of development capital from MCM Partners and Boardman Bay Capital Management.
Olaplex
IPO | $1.55 Billion
Olaplex’s initial public offering raised $1.55 billion on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol of OLPX.
NEXT Energy Technologies
Fund-Raised | $1 million
The company raised $1 million of later-stage venture funding from Regatta Capital Group and other undisclosed investors.
Groundswell Technologies
Fund-Raised | $1.74 million
The company raised $1.74 million of later-stage venture funding from undisclosed investors.