Investor profile
Blue Bear Ventures
Micro-fund
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Blue Bear Ventures (BBV) is a seed-stage deep tech fund that spun out of UC Berkeley's CITRIS Foundry accelerator, born from the desire to see innovative technologies put to practical use to improve quality of life. BBV engages founders working on the frontiers of science and technology with the ambition to solve the most pressing challenges in the world today — spanning Sustainable Economies, Applied Biology, and Emerging Tech. The firm invests exclusively in co-founding teams of scientists and engineers from elite research universities (UC Berkeley, UCSF, MIT, Stanford), providing patient capital, deep technical mentorship, and access to UC Berkeley's innovation ecosystem and BCG's corporate networks. BBV prefers to be the first institutional investor, typically leading or co-leading seed rounds, and maintains follow-on reserves to support portfolio companies through their entire journey.
Notable quotes
“As an inexperienced founder, the advice I received from BBV in my early days was unparalleled… BBV listened, trusted, and (were) honest with the founders.”
“BBV's team is very sincere about wanting the founders to be successful as they continuously try to go above and beyond to help you - I realized this during the Series A and I'm very appreciative of that from the team.”
“The BBV team continues to act as an amazing sounding board that offers a depth of experience and diverse points of view as we work to address key areas of risk across our business. We would not be here today if it were not for their early mentorship and support.”
Team
Marianne Abib-Pech
Managing Partner
Irfan Vissandjee
Principal
Linda Maduwura
CFO
Recent investments
| Company | Round | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayar Labs | Seed | — | 2015 |
| Aluna | Seed | — | — |
| Coreshell Technologies | Seed | — | — |
| GenEdit | Seed | — | — |
| Unnatural Products | Seed | $6m | 2019-09-01 |
| DNALite Therapeutics | Seed | $2m | 2018-08-01 |
| Resynergi | Series B | $18m | 2025-02 |
| Aether Bio | Seed | — | — |
| Clarity | Seed | — | — |
| New Sun Road | Seed | — | — |
Frequent co-investors
| VC firm | Deals together |
|---|---|
| Playground Global | 2 |
| SOSV | 2 |
| Intel Capital | 2 |
| Lockheed Martin Ventures | 2 |
| ARCH Venture Partners | 1 |
| Better Ventures | 1 |
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