Office, Lab & Meeting Space
With updated Berkeley land use policies to “Keep Innovation in Berkeley”, the city has a wide-ranging scope of commercial real estate to accommodate startup growth. More than two million square feet of innovation-ready space include co-working office spaces near the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stop in Downtown Berkeley and the UC Berkeley campus, as well as R&D campuses with wet labs and bay views alongside the I-80 freeway connecting to San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and the north bay.
Berkeley conference and meeting spaces also accommodate interactions of all sizes and types, from Ciel Space’s plant-draped foyer and podcast studios, to the 850-person capacity ballroom and 22 private gathering places at the DoubleTree by Hilton at the Berkeley Marina, to more than 15 thousand square feet of flexible indoor and outdoor venues usable for meetings, conferences, receptions, and social events at the Residence Inn by Marriott Berkeley, in downtown Berkeley a block from the UC Berkeley campus. Combined, the city hosts 2.4 million overnight visitors annually, which are accommodated and entertained by Visit Berkeley.
Business Operating Environment
According to a 2023 Bay Area Council study, Berkeley has lower business license taxes than San Francisco, where “tax burdens are multiple times higher”, and the City exempts government and philanthropic R&D grants from annual business license taxes (essential for companies that are doing research in the public interest). The City of Berkeley has shown significant support for startups and R&D companies in recent years, not only though updated tax and land use policies, but also by supporting the Berkeley Startup Cluster network, which hosts events for founders and innovators, makes connections, promotes technologies #DiscoveredinBerkeley, and shares news and opportunities via LinkedIn, newsletter and other communications channels.
Innovation Resources
Berkeley companies have access to cutting edge R&D equipment, tools, and programs. The Berkeley Startup Cluster partners with UC Berkeley to provide innovation resources to a wide spectrum of users: students, faculty, staff, alumni, and external partners.
Many of UC Berkeley’s core facilities are open to public use, and at Berkeley Lab, five U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science National User Facilities provide nearly 14,000 researchers per year with advanced capabilities in high-performance computing and data science, chemical sciences, materials synthesis and characterization, and genomic science.
Check out these resources on the Innovation & Entrepreneurship website (iande.berkeley.edu), and the Berkeley Gateway to Innovation (BEGIN) website (begin.berkeley.edu), with the latter more geared towards students.
Explore Berkeley's Innovation Ecosystem
