San Diego Tech News Weekly – July 28, 2023

Foreign Hello, Happy Friday or whatever day it is that you are listening in here. This is Neil Bloom and Fred Greer. I am a entrepreneur turned investor now with Interlock Capital, a community focused operator and entrepreneur group of people investing into early state startups and the host of the Tacos and Tech podcast and and I'm here with Fred Greer, my co host. Hey Fred. Hello. Hello.

I am Fred Greer, journalist and author of SD Founders Substack. I've been covering San Diego startup and tech scene for the last three years and excited to be back for another San Diego podcast.

Yes. This week in San Diego tech news. We are happy to share what's been going on over the last week both from a news angle, events and what's coming up that we can see all of you at. So let's jump right into AI world. More news of other venture backed startups incorporating OpenAI or other LLM kind of AI based models into their approach. Previously we had Sochi which earlier in the year raise a significant D round with adding AI platforms into their tech stack. And now we've got Travato, more of a fintech product adding in the AI aspect to the platform. What do you know about Travato here Fred?

Yeah, so this is a Solana beach company, software kind of fintech business. They raise you know, venture backed funding about 60 million and so they've announced, you know, kind of, you know, leaning into AI to expedite or improve their next gen cash flow management platform. They work with businesses and help them basically manage their cash flowing finances better. And so pretty interesting to see that this is another company that is leaning into AI. We saw other companies doing this and so we're going to continue to see more startups really lean into the AI space.

Yeah, AI continues to be top of mind in all news. Big news and tech news. We here in San Diego just hosted a group of AI and bio experts. Our monthly little private meetup yesterday and you know it's kind of a cool thing. We have a bunch of true, just tech AI people, a true bio, biotech, life sciences and then a group who are kind of playing at where this converges. And so we have people do kind of do demos of their product that is playing in both worlds. We had personal AI, a local startup with repeat founders. I think they originated Aira, which was an accessibility tech company. Now personally I which is started in kind of the memory care space of being able to have an AI that can tap into all of your memories and they've, they've turned it into you know, this almost like a GPT or open AI but just for you. So you feed it the information, everything you can about yourself and now you can recall that and then you can open it to other people. So let's say I want to tap into Fred's experience at the Business Journal or as a reporter. I can ask his AI questions and it should be able to answer in place of Fred. So it was a super cool demo that they did and I'm really excited to see them getting some traction here at our recent event. Any comments on the AI world, Fred?

Really cool. No, I think there's a hub, you know, growing here. We had a big hackathon event and now we have a few companies that are really going all in AI space. And so yeah, it's a hot topic right now in San Diego.

Yeah. And speaking of which, the next first Mondays with Startup San Diego is going to be another AI panel. So you'll have a bunch of AI I wouldn't even call them experts. I'd say people approaching AI from a variety of industries and angles. So keep an eye out. We'll put a link in the show notes to Startup San Diego's August, I think seventh event. That looks right. August 7th. Yeah. Startup sd.org we'll put a link there. Let's, let's talk E commerce. E commerce tech is big in San Diego and you are just starting to get to know a company named Sunday Golf here. Yeah, yeah.

So Sunday Golf is a local company that sells golf bag equipment. So they not they don't make the clubs, they make the bags that hold the clubs. And their e commerce company, they launched in 2020 and three years fast forward they're actually hit 5 million in revenue and on track to hit 7 million this year. And so it's pretty impressive growth all throughout E commerce. I think they're selling in over 600 golf courses. I'll have a more in depth post on this but it was pretty cool because I found a reached out and said hey, we're growing really fast. We're going to launch a Kickstarter that launched last week and they've already raised 900,000 folk. $900,000 from individual investors. You could donate as much as, you know, $100 to more than that and it's great to see that that's going well.

That's awesome. Really cool to hear another e commerce company. Well, more on the e commerce tech side, you know we're building tech, specifically these brands is a company called Sendlane. Sen Lane is a Series I think Series A or series B Stage company led by CEO Jimmy Kim who by the way previous to having a tech company was on the E commerce and agency side. So had a ton of experience being a brand and an agency marketing agency and then started realizing hey I could build a email marketing platform to help all these individual brands. And so they're taking on the big gorilla in the space called Klaviyo. Klaviyo is like a super unicorn out of Europe. And you know, if you according to Twitter, seeing the remarks of everyone commenting on how happy they are at Send Land, like they're doing pretty well, punching up above their their weight against a big E commerce tech company here. They've got a big event that they're doing in San Diego. Do you know about this event Fred?

Yeah. So I actually just posted this on Twitter and shout out to to Jimmy at Sen Lane. He is a OG in the startup ecosystem. They've been building Send Lane for several years and they've now got you know, a lot of big traction. And so they're hosting this event September I think 18th called Commerce Roundtable and they're breaking together the top direct to consumer operators globally and they're hosting the event in San Diego and so the speaker lineup is stacked. They're going to have basically the top E commerce founders gathering together. I think there's also going to be a dinner happening and so if you're in E commerce or interested in E commerce, it's an event you don't want to miss out on.

That's awesome. That's great to hear. Another E Commerce related news a the Escondido Mall, which I'm trying to remember the name but it was a Westfield mall, just was acquired by a private group of previous Westfield employees. They went and formed their own real estate company and they're really interested in making this an entrepreneur friendly mall. So they want to attract local entrepreneurs maybe who have an E commerce or retail brand to to come and come to this mall and utilize the mall. Almost like a sandbox for entrepreneurs like go and test new ways of bringing digital to physical or physical to digital. Really interesting. Steerpoint Capital is their name. Good group of guys out of LA I got to know. I actually met them in person recently at a conference and excited to see them doing that here in San Diego. So great news there. Let's move over to some coworking news. There's some new coworking spaces popping up in San Diego. What do you know about Venture X?

So Venture X just had A grand opening. They're actually opening a co working space in Scripps Ranch. This is a franchise co working space and so they have, you know, locations throughout the U.S. but this is the first time they're expanding to San Diego. They tapped a local entrepreneur who's running that location and they're going to be opening up. You know, I think, don't quote me on this, but I think they're going to be opening up a few slots for entrepreneurs for free. So I definitely think it's a new co working space to look out to. But I know there's several of those that popped up over the last few years. Neil, is there anything else that you want to add to that?

Yeah, another new one that's coming to town called Mission Coworking that's in Mission Valley and it started up by an experienced defense tech entrepreneur. He sold his company called Salute. It was both a software development house agency that built software exclusively for the defense world and a consultancy. He sold the business but kept the building. And he's turning the building into co working but kind of wants to attract like defense tech kind of founders and companies so that they can all be housed under one space and sharing notes and talent and customers and brain power which is really cool to see to have kind of a density mentality. It'll end up turning into its own incubator just because if you get the right talent in the building you're just going to be, you know, things will happen. So Mission co workings worth checking out off the 8 freeway there right at Fashion Valley Mall I believe. Right. Like off the 163. So another one to check out. We'll we'll link to in the show notes here and then a bunch of events coming up worth talking about. We are doing Fresh Brew Tech is doing our ag tech gathering on August 17th so you can find info out@fresh brewtech.com a week later. Nucleate Summit is happening which is a global summit for PhD turned entrepreneurs helping people who are working on research that want to start a company out of it. It's a, that's what the Nucleate program is and they're hosting their summit in San Diego. So a bunch of us are coming down as experienced entrepreneurs to kind of come help and be mentors for the day. We'll have a little like interlock mentor booth if you will at that. You we haven't met. We mentioned first Mondays, August 7th coming up here, what other events are on your radar?

Well you're actually your August founders hike is happening next week, right?

That's true. You're right. First Wednesday of each month, August Founders Hike. 6:30 in the morning. We'll get you out there once. Maybe. I think the date that's August 2nd. August 1st, actually. We are doing our monthly welcome to San Diego Tech Community. It's a virtual welcome event where if you're new to town or new to the startup or tech world, we will help get you connected online over a lunch as well. So busy August in the month of September. We already mentioned E Commerce or Commerce Roundtable. Also Innovation Day, September 14th with Connect, which I keep hearing a lot of people talking about. So I think it'll be a big day. And green.org is doing their San Diego Green Summit. Which local blogger. I don't know if you've met Dylan Welch yet, but he started green.org and he's now moved the summit around to a bunch of different cities. They just had their New York Green Summit. Now they're having the San Diego Green Summit in September. So check out green.org for. For their event coming up as well too. Oh, and green, by the way, meaning sustainability tech, environmental tech, blue tech, kind of everything around that for green.org.

That'S awesome. And they have every something for everyone. AI Green Actech startup Community building. There's little. There's something for everyone.

Yeah. A lot going on. I might as well give a shout out to Santa Startup Week, which will be the last week of October. So we'll put out more details. We'll do. We'll do more in depth on that. But just a lot coming up between now and end of October here.

I'm excited.

Yeah. Busy as always. Fred, it's always a pleasure to do this with you. Hope you have a great weekend and thank you all for tuning in.

Likewise. Thanks for having me. See you next week.

Cheers. Cheers.