Newsletter
E@B Newsletter #1
What Berkeley Founders are Building, Learning, and Asking For
Entrepreneurs at Berkeley
February 12, 2026·5 min read
$8.5M+
Raised
4
YC-backed teams
40+
Active founders
On this page
Hello friends of Entrepreneurs at Berkeley — this is our first newsletter, and we plan to earn the right to be in your inbox.
E@B is 50 Berkeley undergrads who 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 part of the flywheel. And if you're here out of curiosity: we're glad you came.
YC edition
What Berkeley founders are building
Our founders have raised $8.5M+ so far. Here's a snapshot of what YC-backed E@B teams are building right now.
01 · YC W26
Lance
AI agents for hotel operations — from staffing to ops optimization.
Lance has been recognized as one of the strongest teams in the W26 batch. Congrats to Caleb Chan, Gatik Trivedi, and Gavin Brennen on the launch!
02 · YC S25
Human Behavior
Infrastructure to track user behavior across apps.
Raised $5M from General Catalyst, Paul Graham, and others. Founder Skyler Ji previously exited Dough.
03 · YC S25
Relixir
One of the first GEO platforms in YC.
Dennis Zax and Sean Dorje raised $2M and are already powering 50+ companies on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and more.
04 · YC F25
The Context Company
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, and Gavin Brennen — Lance, YC W26.
Lance builds AI agents for hotel operations — from staffing to ops optimization.
Caleb, Gatik, and Gavin bring deep experience in AI agents and have exited before. Lance has been recognized as one of the strongest teams in the W26 batch.
- Obsessed with
- Turning hotel guest skepticism about AI into trust by making every interaction faster than a human alternative.
- Scrappy moment
- Repeatedly got in and out of line at a Starbucks outside the largest hotel conference so they could pitch Lance to people waiting.
- Founder habit
- Racing against Claude Code with a Rubik's cube while waiting for a prompt.
- Wish they'd known
- Building something cool or useful is very different from fixing a pain that's costing businesses millions.
- Their ask
- If you know hotel operators who want to improve their OpEx, book a call.
Watch for Lance on YouTube, their site, and X — or reply to this note if you want a warm intro to the team.
Community
Our recent wins
Sponsors, judges, partners, and new members from the last few weeks.
Momentum (Fall 2025)
- Rho — 1st Prize Sponsor ($10k) plus Demo Day lunch. Congrats to Abhinav Kasturi and Gavin Brennen for winning!
- Delve — 2nd Prize Sponsor ($1k). Thank you to Jayu Patel for coordinating, and 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), and Pavla Bobosikova (Neo).
This week
- Welcoming 16 new members to the 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.
Continue reading
E@B Newsletter #2
14 startups presenting at Demo Day, a founder spotlight on Arden (YC W26), Lance raises at $60M valuation, and what Berkeley founders are asking for.
Entrepreneurs at Berkeley · April 14, 2026 · 6 min