College of Engineering Shines in Haas’ Berkeley Business Plan Competition

For the 2002 Berkeley Business Plan competition’s winner, Adaptic Systems, the phrase “visionary technology” is more than a marketing ploy.

Adaptic has developed low-cost deformable micro mirrors for adaptive optics. Tripling the image resolution of current technologies, Adaptic’s breakthrough promises significant improvements in optical applications, including pharmaceuticals that prevent blindness, LASIK surgery, custom contact lenses, and early detection of eye diseases.

Adaptic is the brainchild of second-year Haas MBA student Matthew Campbell; Michael Helmbrecht, an EECS graduate student and Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center researcher; and Nathan Doble, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Rochester. On April 24 a distinguished panel of venture capitalists chose Adaptic from the remaining six finalists to receive the Berkeley competition’s $50,000 grand prize. (A few days later, Adaptic also took the top prize of $25,000 at the MBA Jungle 2002 Business Plan Challenge sponsored by Forbes and Korn/Ferry International.)

“We’re going to use some of the money to pay ourselves back for expenses,” says Adaptic’s Helmbrecht. “Then our next step is to incorporate and look for angel or VC funding.” He will be continuing his EECS postdoc while working on the company part time. “There go my weekends,” he acknowledges.

E-Mask, comprising Haas MBA students Robert Lee and Michael Lodoen and engineering graduate students Ben Wild and Benny Warlick, took home two prizes from the Berkeley competition — the $10,000 third prize plus the $5,000 People’s Choice Award (selected by the audience at the final event).

E-Mask’s digital, programmable lithography for integrated circuit manufacturing eliminates the need for costly masks, which among other benefits will make it more feasible to manufacture customized chips. Wild, an EECS Ph.D. student, is on a roll lately: he and a different maskless lithography team won second place at the April 13 VERTEX Innovators’ Challenge competition.

One of the leading business plan competitions in the country, the Berkeley contest has spun off several successful businesses. In four years, participating teams have raised more than $120 million in venture funding. First-year winner Timbre Technologies, also a College of Engineering team, was sold in February 2001 to Tokyo Semiconductor for $138 million.