New partnership pairs an operator-led deep tech commercialization hub with Berkeley’s institutional home for national security policy to accelerate the deployment of breakthrough research.
BERKELEY, Calif. — The Berkeley Gateway Accelerator (BGA) and the Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance (BISG) today announced The Berkeley Forge, a joint program of BGA and BISG, built to accelerate dual-use technologies from research to deployment across national security, domestic resilience, and critical dual-use innovation. The organizations have signed a Letter of Intent to formalize the collaboration, which operates inside BGA’s 30,000-square-foot innovation hub in downtown Berkeley.
The Berkeley Forge is designed to close a widening gap: the pace of deep tech innovation in the commercial sector increasingly outstrips the government’s ability to identify, evaluate, and adopt it. By bringing mission-aligned partners, technical founders, and students from across the Berkeley ecosystem (in particular Berkeley Engineering, Haas, Berkeley Law, the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society and the Goldman School of Public Policy) under one roof, the program creates a structured pathway from university and national lab research to defensible, deployable companies.
BISG, led by former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and UC President Janet Napolitano, contributes mission framing, policy and domain expertise, and deep relationships across government. BGA contributes an independent, operator-led deep tech commercialization hub with a proven five-month residency model, a dedicated venture fund (Future Frontier Capital), an active portfolio of resident companies, and an ecosystem that has convened more than 1,000 deep tech founders, investors, and operators since February 2026.
“The technologies that will define national resilience over the next decade are being invented in university labs right now, but the path from a breakthrough to a fielded capability is broken,” said Matt Rappaport, Managing Partner of the Berkeley Gateway Accelerator. “Berkeley Forge exists to fix that. We are pairing two decades of deep tech commercialization discipline with BISG’s policy fluency and government access, and giving founders a real on-ramp to the missions that matter most.”
The program will run partner-sponsored Mission Challenges, hackathons, and innovation sprints; a resident startup program; IP, regulatory, and National Security mentorship; and formal technology-transfer pathways with National Laboratories. It will also specifically support Hacking for Defense (H4D) cohorts. The inaugural Berkeley Forge hackathon is scheduled for October 17-18, 2026.
“Solving the country’s hardest security and resilience problems requires the technical depth of Berkeley’s research community and a clear line to the people who actually field these solutions,” said Angelina Soldatos, Executive Director of the Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance. “Berkeley Forge gives founders, students, and mission partners a shared place to build together, with the policy, acquisition, and IP expertise that determines whether a technology ever reaches the field.”
BGA and BISG are engaging founding-partners across government, industry, philanthropy, and private capital to capitalize the program at launch. Founding partners gain named recognition, advisory standing, and early access to talent and deal flow across the program’s portfolio.
About the Berkeley Gateway Accelerator
The Berkeley Gateway Accelerator is an independent deep tech accelerator and venture fund based at 2168 Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. BGA’s five-month residency provides approximately $400,000 in cash and services per company, roughly 800 hours of embedded interdisciplinary support, and access to a curated network of deep tech operators and investors. BGA invests through Future Frontier Capital, its dedicated pre-seed deep tech fund. Learn more at www.bga.tech.
About the Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance
The Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance is UC Berkeley’s institutional home for translating academic research into public-policy and innovation solutions for national security, spanning academic-private innovation, cybersecurity and emerging technologies, and institutional resilience.
Media Contact: Berkeley Gateway Accelerator, 2168 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704, berkeleygateway@futurefrontier.vc
