Successful Alumni of the
Lester Center
Numerous students have graduated from Berkeley with their own start-up companies which have grown into successful businesses. The Lester Center has had the honor to foster the growth of ideas among students through the administration of their programs. Here is just a small list of successful alumni and their businesses which have had Lester Center contributions:
| Zach Gentry MBA '05 |
Berkeley Entrepreneurship Laboratory (BEL) Tenant | |
Priya Haji Siddharth Sanghvi |
GSVC 2005 Grand Prize Winner; BEL Tenant | |
| Sarah Takesh MBA '03 |
NSVC 2003- Best Blended Prize | |
| Peter Fiske MBA '02 |
B-Plan Comp 2001 Grand Prize Winner. Later received an $8M contract from US Dep't of Defense. | |
| Matt Campbell MBA '02 |
B-Plan Competition 2002 Grand Prize | Scott Kucirek Juan Mini |
B-Plan Comp. 1999 Finalist; BEL Tenant; Over $27M in venture capital funding. |
David Hehman Alex Chang Stephen Scales |
Was a BEL tenant. Sold to Expedia in 1998. David Hehman started the GetAwayZone Student Mentorship Endowment at the Lester Center in order to further encourage student entrepreneurs. | |
| John Woolard MBA '97 |
Partnered with Jon Blankmeyer of the Berkeley Entrepreneurs' Forum Advisory Council to start it; Price Fellow 96-97; Sold to Itron for $71.2M in March 2003 | |
| John Hanke MBA '96 |
John's third startup; Sold to Google in 2004 | |
| Kevin Brown MBA '96 |
Inktomi |
Founded with Eric Brewer and Paul Gauthier. Acquired by Yahoo in 2002. |
| Steve Markowitz MBA '96 Noah Doyle Mark Smith Layton Han Dan Kihanya |
This business plan was originally developed in one of Haas's entrepreneurship classes! The company's annual revenue grew to $64m in 2000 from $0 in 1996, and had over 16 million consumers (or 15% of all online customers). It acquired 3 of its competitors and spread into international markets. It was sold to United Airlines in 2001 for $112.5M. |
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Andre Marquis |
iPIX CyberGold Accept.com |
Andre successfully started these three companies during and right after completing his MBA. He was very involved in PEL while at Haas. He started his first company CyberGold right out of Haas, which soon became one of the twenty fastest growing sites on the internet. His second company, Emptor, which became Accept.com, a Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital backed e-commerce company, was acquired by Amazon.com. His third company, Bamboo.com was acquired by iPIX for $1.2 billion. iPIX is now the world's largest manager of Internet visual content with partners including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and eBay. |
| Tod Dykstra MBA '91 |
$7M Series A funding from Foundational Capital and Institutional Venture Partners in December of 2004. | |
| Gerry Pesavento MBA '89 |
B-Plan Comp 1999- 2nd Place Prize; Gerry led Alloptic to $50M in funding. Was CEO, became Sr.Vice President of Advanced Technology in late 2000. |
