From copy shops and cafés to cutting-edge high-tech startups, scores of East Bay businesses rely on their relationship to UC Berkeley for ideas, energy or customers essential to success. Below we profile two of them.

Yali's Café
It's a busy morning at Yali's Café, located on Oxford Street and Berkeley Way, just west of campus. Every table is filled, many with students hunched over laptops or textbooks, while a line forms at the counter.

Yali's Café is a relatively new addition to the neighborhood and, in its third year of operation, business is booming. "The first week I was open," says owner Ayal Amzel," I was here all by myself, just me and my wife doing everything: squeezing orange juice, baking the muffins and cookies, roasting turkeys. We were even the night cleaners. That's how we started. Now, we have 13 employees."

Yali's is one of dozens of food businesses that benefit from campus foot traffic. The lively corner café features small tables, inside and on the sidewalk, and a "living room" section complete with comfortable chairs, a coffee table and bookcase. Its location makes it a favorite spot for a quick coffee break, lunch or snack.Israeli-born Amzel worked in a coffee shop in Sweden for ten years where he developed the concepts he uses in his friendly place. "Big chains are more efficient," he says, "but they have much less of a heart." During his time in Europe he dreamed about owning his own coffee shop there. A serendipitous trip back home changed the location of his fantasy: in Israel he met his future wife, Leah, who was Berkeley "born-and-bred." They married, opened Yali's Café in her hometown, and had a child last April.Amzel appreciates his location on the edge of Cal. "Without the university I wouldn't be here, and neither would my employees - and half of them have families."

PolyPlus Batteries
Located on Sixth Street in West Berkeley, the PolyPlus Battery Company is a research and development company working on a light-weight, high-efficiency and non-toxic battery. PolyPlus is one of dozens of small Berkeley companies researching and developing new technologies that first germinated on the UC campus. The patented lithium-sulfur battery system, invented by May-Ying Chu, a graduate of Cal, grew out of research begun by two UC professors. The company's founders see their lithium-sulfur battery as the next generation of advanced batteries, capable of capturing a substantial portion of the global market for power sources for everything from pagers to power tools, personal medical equipment, cell phones, portable computers and even electric powered/hybrid vehicles.

PolyPlus founders and their 30 employees are not the only ones enthusiastic about the battery's future. The company has received funding from individual "angels," venture capital, the battery industry including Eveready and Samsung, and an $8 million federal government research grant

The battery is part of "leapfrog" technology, explains Chu, now vice president of operations. Its lighter weight will foster many other developments in the world of portable technology. For example, the new battery could reduce laptop computer batteries to half of their current weight. The PolyPlus battery system should be ready for production within the next five years. In addition to continuing R&D, PolyPlus plans to license its technology to commercial manufacturers. PolyPlus itself has a license and royalty agreement with UC Berkeley, where two of its founders still work.