Rimba

University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Industry: Energy, Enterprise Saas, AI

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Timothy Daniel

Brief Description of Solution: Rimba is the easiest way for fuel producers to deploy AI-driven analytics and automation for their operations and compliance teams.

We let operators ask specific questions to help them visualize plan performance, troubleshoot issues, and get insights to make critical decisions. We automate tedious data preparation and reporting work for compliance teams.

Funding Dollars: $1.4M

What led you to launch this venture? In my previous role, I was the in-house counsel for a mining and energy company in Indonesia. I led compliance for local and international regulations and certifications.

Managing data became messy. We had to collect heaps of documents, standardize them into reports, and track the movement of raw materials required by regulation. I saw an opportunity in the U.S., the world’s largest energy producer and market, to solve this global problem.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Rimba is used in eight renewable natural gas (RNG) plants across the U.S. Getting to Y Combinator for the spring 2025 batch has been a tremendous learning experience and helped us raise funding. Our company is not the typical SaaS software that investors in San Francisco typically see, and it can be difficult to grasp what happens inside the fuel industry.

 What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Enterprise sales is very different than any other kind of sales. People won’t buy five-to-seven figures worth of software over an email or a phone call. You must get your boots on the ground and meet customers where they are (in person, their office, or conferences), so I have been flying two to three times a month. This is more like business development than sales because you’re forming relationships across your ICP and their sponsors while building your brand and trust in the industry.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? I started Rimba during my MBA.

Berkeley StEP and UC LAUNCH have been immensely helpful. I actually won first place for both competitions and received $5,000 and $25,000, respectively.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? I learned about getting out there and meeting your customers through a class called Lean LaunchPad, created by Berkeley Haas Lecturer Steve Blank.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why?  Rhonda Shrader, who runs the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP), has been immensely helpful. The same goes for Jim Hornthal, who teaches the Lean LaunchPad course.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? The UC Berkeley community has been invaluable. Rimba received $150,000 from two other competitions held by AI Entrepreneurs at Berkeley and NFX Berkeley FAST.

Being in San Francisco is incredible—there is no other city in the world that has the complete support system to start and scale venture-backed companies

What is your long-term goal with your startup? I want to become a household name in the energy industry, the same way Palantir is for defense and SAP is for corporate ERP.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture?  Overcommunication is key, and building rituals that set up the right culture for the company should be overemphasized. At startups, no one teaches you how to keep things organized while trying to grow fast.

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