QB3's 'Startup in a Box' powers new wave of biotech startups

Caribou Biosciences CEO Rachel Haurwitz.

QB3’s boxes are stacking up. Startup in a Box, which initially aimed at helping 15 wannabe life sciences entrepreneurs blow past barriers to launching companies, has aided 76 startups since it began a year ago — and it is pushing deeper into the Bay Area. The 17 companies fully operational with Startup in a Box’s aid have set up shop in San Francisco, Berkeley, Walnut Creek and San Jose. That diaspora is exactly what leaders of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3, had in mind when they started the program in summer 2011 to help entrepreneurs-in-waiting incorporate a company, get startup government funding, protect their intellectual property or simply set up a no-fee company bank account. What they weren’t counting on, however, was an overflowing box.