Entrepreneurs at Berkeley
The leading founder community at UC Berkeley
E@B Newsletter #1
What Berkeley Founders are Building, Learning, and Asking For
Entrepreneurs at Berkeley · February 2026
What Berkeley Founders are Building, Learning, and Asking For
Hello friends of Entrepreneurs at Berkeley —
This is our first newsletter! We plan to earn the right to be in your inbox.
E@B is 50 Berkeley undergrads that have been building startups our whole lives. Our community exists for one simple reason: to build the best founder community in the world.
Students, Alumni, Operators, Investors. Builders at every stage.
This newsletter is how we make that ecosystem visible, useful, and connected.
If you're reading this as a founder: welcome home.
If you're reading this as an alum, parent, or investor: thank you for being a part of the flywheel.
If you're reading this out of curiosity: we're glad you're here!
What Berkeley Founders Are Building (YC Edition)
Our founders have raised $8.5M+ so far. Here's a snapshot of what YC-backed E@B teams are building right now.
1. Lance (YC W26)
AI agents for hotel operations — from staffing to ops optimization.
Founders Caleb Chan, Gatik Trivedi, and Gavin Brennen bring deep experience in AI agents and have exited before. Lance has been recognized as one of the strongest teams in the W26 batch. Congrats on the launch!
2. Human Behavior (YC S25)
Raised $5M from General Catalyst, Paul Graham, and others.
They're building infrastructure to track user behavior across apps. Founder Skyler Ji previously exited Dough.
3. Relixir (YC S25)
Raised $2M as one of the first GEO platforms in YC.
Dennis Zax and Sean Dorje are already powering 50+ companies on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and more.
4. The Context Company (YC F25)
An observability platform for AI agents.
Founded by Rohil Agarwal, former Google software engineer.
Our 2026 goal: 10 YC-backed companies from E@B.
40+ founders are currently building toward that bar.
Founder Spotlight: Lance
Caleb Chan, Gatik Trivedi, Gavin Brennen — Lance, YC W26
The problem they're obsessed with:
Turning hotel guest skepticism about AI into trust by making every interaction faster than a human alternative.
A scrappy thing they did this week:
Repeatedly got in and out of line at a Starbucks outside of the largest hotel conference so they could pitch Lance to people in line.
A weird/funny founder habit:
Racing against Claude Code with a Rubik's cube while waiting for a prompt.
What they wish they knew at Berkeley:
Building something cool or useful is very different from fixing a pain that's costing businesses millions (or more).
Their ask from readers:
If you know hotel operators that want to improve their OpEx, book a call.
Check them out here: YouTube, Website, X.
Our Recent Wins
Momentum (Fall 2025)
- Rho — 1st Prize Sponsor ($10k) + Demo Day Lunch. Congrats to Abhinav Kasturi and Gavin Brennen for winning!
- Delve — 2nd Prize Sponsor ($1k). Thank you to Jayu Patel for coordinating this. Congrats to Lucas Choe for winning!
- Huge thanks to our judges and mentors: Andrea Wang (SV Angel), David Bloom (The House Fund), Khalil Fuller (Pear), Emily Yu (Boost VC), Pavla Bobosikova (Neo).
This Week
- Welcoming 16 new members to our organization and building community!
- Officially partnered with Orrick — free C-Corps for all E@B members! Huge thanks to Dan Kim for coordinating this.
This ecosystem only works because people keep saying yes.
Thank you to everyone who made an intro, hosted a room, mentored a founder, donated credits, took a coffee chat, or even just showed up. You're building Berkeley's startup culture whether you realize it or not.
If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you want in, you're already one step in.
See you soon,
Entrepreneurs at Berkeley
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