10 Years of Cyclotron Road Helping Entrepreneurs Bring Technologies to Market

For 10 years, Cyclotron Road, housed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), has been supporting scientists, researchers, and innovators in scaling emerging technologies and bringing them to market through the U.S. Department of Energy's Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP) fellowship. The fellowship provides entrepreneurs with access to the lab's state-of-the-art R&D resources, business training, and a community of scientists, industry experts, and alumni. While in the two-year program, fellows conduct market validation, develop prototypes, form partnerships, and secure seed funding that's essential in going from lab to launch.

The longest-running LEEP site, Cyclotron Road has supported 92 startups, which have gone on to create over 2,800 jobs and bring in $4.3 billion in follow-on funding. The model it created has now been scaled to four other national labs across the country. The companies span the nation and impact everything from jet fuel to surgical imaging. But the stats only tell a small sliver of the story.

The companies enabled by Cyclotron Road have helped advance innovation, driving America's competitive edge as a technological leader, fueling economic growth, and bettering the lives of Americans. Many of the companies have become the most talked-about startups in energy, biomanufacturing, and heavy industry. They are building large-scale facilities and entering into partnerships with household names.

"Startups are such a powerful vehicle," said Ilan Gur, one of the creators of Cyclotron Road. "Entrepreneurship is how research crosses the chasm between concept and consumer. For scientists who never thought about building a career in academia or a national lab system, but want to go build things, the lab can be a catalyst in a new way."

Here are several ways Cyclotron Road has made an impact:

Jack Norbeck, Cyclotron Road cohort 2018, had, in his words, "virtually zero exposure to or experience in entrepreneurship." The mentorship from Cyclotron Road helped him and his business partner, Tim Latimer, create Fervo Energy, a geothermal power company using oil and gas technology to create new sources of reliable energy.

In 2023, the company partnered with Google to launch a commercial geothermal pilot project that powers Google's data centers in Nevada. And in 2024, Fervo signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison to power 350,000 homes. To date, it's raised over $700 million in venture capital funding.

"I had two years of being embedded in one of the world's leading research institutions with an incredibly talented group of people," Norbeck said.