Berkeley Catalyst Fund is a venture fund built around UC Berkeley, with the UC Berkeley Foundation as a Special Limited Partner and part of the fund's carry going back to the university, plus a parallel philanthropic fund, the Berkeley Catalyst Philanthropic Fund, so donors can support startups outside the venture structure; the fund grew out of UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry and was founded in part by two PhD chemists trained under a Nobel laureate, giving it a strong science background. It focuses on backing hard-science and translational science founders coming out of UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and UCSF, while remaining legally separate from the university even though it stays financially and contractually tied to it.