Funding
We provide equity-free funds to reimburse costs associated with growing your company on campus, and we help fundraise from top investors during and after the batch.
Berkeley’s Zero-Equity Startup Accelerator
Free Ventures is a pre-seed startup accelerator designed to help Cal student founders build & scale their daring ideas. The best part: we take no equity.
Batch Application
The Free Ventures Accelerator
Since 2013, Free Ventures has been Cal's leading pre-seed accelerator, combining the power of our mentor network, sponsor-led curriculum, and unique personalized point person structure to elevate student startups at Cal to the next level. We are a semester-long program, running a batch in both the spring and fall.
Learn more about the program100+ alumni companies
$200m+ of follow-on capital
23 batches hosted
Recent Acquisitions by Leading Companies
Selected portfolio
Read more on TechCrunch
Paladin Drones
Paladin Drones deploys drones to 911 calls to give first responders instant access to critical information.
FreeV SP17YC S2018Learn about the acquisition
Distributed Systems
Distributed Systems builds a decentralized identity platform. Acquired by Coinbase.
FreeV SP16AcquiredCheck out their website
Gainful
Personalized protein powder, delivered directly to your doorstep.
FreeV SP18YC W2018What we offer
Mentorship
Each week, we bring in founders, investors, and industry experts to help guide our teams. We also provide access to key stakeholders in Cal's startup ecosystem.
Resources
We host workshops to help founders learn quickly and scale, and we partner with top firms SVB and Cooley to provide founder-friendly legal and banking services.
Testimonials
Don't just take it from us. Here's what our incredible founders have to say:
Loggicat
Free Ventures has been 10-100x better than other accelerators I’ve been a part of because of direct support, connections to inventors, and pitch work.
Placeware
We literally started at ground zero with startups... The point person structure makes them stand out because of the focus on helping founders.
Polyture
Polyture was just a project... it wasn’t until the batch that I understood the core competencies of the platform and what he should spend his time on.
BlossomVR
It was super helpful and interesting to get opinions of ppl not familiar with VR in mentor sessions, which had a great mix of good mix of VC, marketing, and tech.
Blackbook
[Connecting with mentors] helped us think critically about [our] company, and the curriculum introduced us to startup terminology and ideation, financing, hiring.
Sportsvue
[Some might ask] why I would spend two hours here instead of working on my startup ...this is worth the time and that’s the best thing I can say...
Oki
Oki was just an idea, and we managed to build a product with the support of point people who are constantly checking and pushing us to move forward.
Looking to get involved?
We believe a university ecosystem is the ideal place to start up, and Cal is one of the best. But there's still a huge need for a strengthened community on campus to bring students together to tackle meaningful challenges. Join us in our quest to build a better community.
Founded in 2013, Free Ventures is a 501(c)(3) student-run non-profit with the mission of making entrepreneurship accessible to UC Berkeley students of all backgrounds by empowering them with the support to innovate and build.
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