Founders and funders connect at this year’s Bakar Bio Labs company showcase

Sep 24, 2026 5 min read

A crowd of people dressed in business casual attire mingling in a sunlit courtyard. — *The Bakar Bio Labs courtyard was abuzz with founders and investors sharing ideas and laughs. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.*

The annual networking event brought together high-caliber investors with high quality startups, catalyzing deals and innovation

Investors are constantly bombarded by pitches from ambitious startup founders. Cold emails, unplanned phone calls, and elevator ambushes repeatedly vie for their limited time and attention. In a refreshing alternative, last Thursday Bakar Bio Labs hosted investors for a showcase of impressive life science startups hand-selected by industry veterans and visionaries.

“I came to the showcase because it’s a very efficient and organized way to meet a huge number of quality startups,” said Bryce Gilleland, general partner at California Innovation Fund, one of UC Berkeley’s eight shared-carry VC funds. “I was able to meet founders driving emerging technologies and get a glimpse into the future.”

Every year, Bakar Bio Labs invites investors and members of the Bay Area’s life science entrepreneurship community to meet our companies in a laid-back, social setting. This year, 37 Bakar Bio Labs and QB3 companies participated in the showcase. Also in attendance were investors from 21 VC firms and companies, a list that included AbbVie, Amgen, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Genentech.

A man smiling at a woman, standing at a table. — *Showcase attendees networked while soaking up the sunshine. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.*

Before joining the Bakar Bio Labs incubator, each company is vetted by the incubator’s selection committee, a group of scientists, serial entrepreneurs and investors who weigh that company’s mission and potential for success. Investors who attended this year’s showcase knew that they were only meeting with high-quality, promising startups that had passed the committee’s vetting process. Prior to the main event, select investors and actively raising founders also attended a speed networking event, where they met one-on-one in a 15-minute speed-dating format.

“Meeting face to face was refreshing given that the majority of fundraising pitches are done virtually these days,” said Dana Foss, CEO of Editpep, a CRISPR genome editing startup. “Fifteen minutes is a great length of meeting time to hit the high points of what we are building and assess if there is a mutual fit, while avoiding the endless emails and scheduling logistics that drains a lot of everyone’s time these days.”

Two women seated at a table, engaged in conversation, in the foreground. More people at tables engaged in conversation in the background. — *Founders pitched their companies to investors at the speed networking session. Photo by Gino Segre.*

The annual showcase, now in its fourth year, feels like a lively cocktail party hosted in Bakar Bio Labs’ beautiful garden courtyard. But every detail is precisely planned by the Bakar Labs team to maximize the opportunities for both investors and founders in attendance. The end result is an evening of encounters that feel like serendipity and can result in important funding opportunities.

“I encourage everyone to mingle and engage in Brownian motion throughout the night,” Bakar Labs Director Dave Schaffer announced to the crowd during his opening remarks, borrowing a term physicists use to describe the random motion of particles. “I encourage you to experience those random collisions, because you never know what will come out of them,” the scientist and serial entrepreneur added.

This year’s showcase landed at an exciting moment in the history of Bakar Labs, the umbrella institution encompassing Bakar Bio Labs and Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials. Bakar Bio Labs celebrates its fifth anniversary in November. Since opening its doors, the life science incubator has housed more than 50 companies that have raised more than $1 billion dollars in combined funding. In the coming years, Bakar Labs will be expanding its footprint across the Bay area, with the opening of the Bakar Labs for Energy & Materials and IGI-Bakar Labs buildings in Berkeley, and facilities at UCSF Mission Bay, all planned to open by 2030.

The annual tenant showcase illustrates one of Bakar Labs’ driving values: that entrepreneurship can be an engine for good. Every new connection could help write the next chapter in life science innovation.

“One of my favorite things about the showcase is that after leaving the event, you can share some of the emerging technologies you learned about and watch people’s eyes get wide in amazement,” Gilleland said.