The University of Berkeley, California is no stranger to mixing philanthropy with venture capital – it already has affiliated funds such as the Berkeley Frontier Fund that donate some of their proceeds back to the university – but now it is getting in on that game itself.
The Berkeley Chancellor’s Fund will be a limited liability corporation wholly owned by the University of California system’s board of regents, the San Francisco Business Times reported yesterday.
Being owned by the system’s board of regents rather than UC Berkeley will mean the fund will source deals from across all of University of California’s campuses as long as they are spinouts or startups with a strong link back to the system.
The Berkeley Chancellor’s Fund may also back other venture capital funds that back University of California-affiliated startups and return profits to Berkeley.
Capital will be secured through philanthropic donations and all profits will be donated back to the university, which also means that the Berkeley Chancellor’s Fund will not have any external limited partners and no carried interest.
Omar Qarshi, director of venture capital services in UC Berkeley’s Office of Intellectual Property & Industry Research Alliances, told the San Francisco Business Times that around $1 million would be needed to get the fund off the ground.
He added he expected raising $5 million per year and managing between $10 million and $20 million at a time.
The Berkeley Chancellor’s Fund comes just a year after the university appointed Rich Lyons as chancellor. Lyons was previously UC Berkeley’s chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer for more than five years.