On November 3, a Friday evening, when they could have been out on the town or relaxing at home, seven Berkeley Lab innovators and teams turned up at a competition to practice pitching their ideas for commercializable inventions to the market.

The event, co-hosted by the Lab’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School, was an opportunity for entrepreneurs to get feedback from the four judges who hailed from the venture capital community: Darek Defreece, founder of the Berkeley Space Center at NASA Ames; David Fleck, founder of Freeflow Ventures; Sheeraz Haji, Managing Partner at ZipDragon and co-director of the Cleantech to Market program; and Laura Smoliar, founding partner at the Berkeley Catalyst Fund.

Each of the contestants gave 10-minute presentations on their elevator pitch, their market position, the customer and competitive landscape, and financial considerations. The presentations were followed by a 5-minute Q&A with the judging panel.

The winners of the event were:

• First place: Nate Weger, affiliate and former PhD student at Energy Technologies Area’s Thermal Energy Group. Presentation title: “Calectra: Electrifying Industrial Heat”

• Second place: Asun Oka, senior process engineer at the Biosciences Area’s Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU). Presentation title: “ReactorX: High-throughput Pressure Reactor”

• Third place: Dupeng Liu, senior process engineer at ABPDU. Presentation title: “REEscovery: Eco-efficient Recovery of Rare Earth Elements”

“I was impressed with the work and the thinking that all the pitch participants brought into their presentations,” said Lucian Sweitzer, a technology commercialization associate at IPO who organized the event. “I think they enjoyed the opportunity to share their ideas and to hear valuable feedback from venture capitalists in a friendly setting.” 

Each winner will receive funding for market discovery time.