A transformational $13.5 million commitment from longtime UC Berkeley supporters Matt Sonsini and Lisa Sonsini will dramatically expand the university’s capacity to translate cutting-edge academic research into ventures that address society’s most pressing challenges.
The commitment launches the next chapter of a partnership with Berkeley that began in 2023, when the Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC) was founded with a simple but ambitious idea: to help more of Berkeley’s most promising scientific discoveries find their way out of the lab and into the world with targeted proof-of-concept grants and intensive, hands-on commercialization support. Combined with program support provided to date, AIC funding will exceed $16 million.
The expansion of AIC will fund more faculty researchers seeking to commercialize breakthroughs in deep tech areas such as energy, materials science, chemistry, aerospace and mobility, advanced electronics, quantum computing and AI. AIC will significantly expand the funding pipeline that has powered the partnership to date, supporting two new AIC-Bakar Fellows awards each year and five CITRIS-CDSS Innovation Fellowships annually for the next five years.
In 2025, AIC expanded its partnership with CITRIS to include the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS). That year, Berkeley researcher Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng was one of five awardees recognized through the CITRIS-CDSS Innovation Fellowships for his work developing Desktop Electronics Projection Lithography (DEPL), a rapid, low-cost fabrication method for producing fully 3D electronic structures with nanoscale conductive precision.
Also among the 2025 awardees was Berkeley researcher Greg Tikhomirov, whose work focuses on developing precisely engineered nanoscale structures for the targeted delivery of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics, with potential applications ranging from infectious disease prevention to the treatment of cancer and other complex diseases.
“Our hope is simple,” Matt Sonsini said. “We want to help unleash practical innovation for the public good. Berkeley is exactly the place to do it.”
