This Week in San Diego Tech News - August 8, 2024

Hey everyone, it's your best friends Neil and Fred here with another this week in San Diego tech news. Hey, Fred, how you doing?

Hey, Neil. Happy Friday. I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing?

Doing all right, thanks. This is Neil Blum with Fresh Fruit Tech, the Tacos and Tech podcast and Interlock Capital startup community organizer and investor. And Fred here, Fred Greer, tech journalist.

In San Diego covering fast growing companies and the venture capital firms backing them and excited to be back talking the biggest news in tech.

Yeah, we love to do this and put some recent news and events in your eardrums. We've got a few fundings to cover. Definitely been some big fundings that we'll get through. Why don't we just dive right into that? We've got some biotech and some med device and some logistics tech and a little bit of hardware. So a little bit all over the place.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech and tacos. Tacos in tech you know we got tacos in tech is on smash border green guacamole keep accountants counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles Founders trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping Fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a craft beer and coffee coffee my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing Coronado eating tacos El gordo the taco stand in pesto lucha libre and sombrero gotta shout out to cost Angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside to Tijuana Estee be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders who stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom.

Come on.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we interview tech leaders in the San Diego tech ecosystem. We also read the latest tech news on this Week in San Diego Tech news. Follow us and subscribe online to your favorite podcast network. First one here, Audubon Therapeutics. I think you covered them a little bit. Give us a feature here on Autobond's raising of 100 million.

Yeah, so there's kind of two big life science funding rounds in the last week. First one is Autobond raises 100 million Series C and this is a huge news. As you know, biotech funding has been down largely in 2023. We're starting to see some really large funding rounds in 2024. Autobahn is one of those companies. In addition, we also had Trivian Health, they also raised some capital and they raised I believe 74 million series D capital. And so I would say these two companies are more on the late stage. Truvian Health, they've raised money in the early days. They actually have connections to connect San Diego and Audubon Therapeutics are early stage company working at therapies for depression and they were backed by some of the top venture capital firms including Insight Partners, which we actually have an investor here in San Diego, Aiden, who invests in companies on behalf of Insight. And I'm starting to see talk to a lot more life science, life science companies and I'm hearing that funding is definitely picking up and there's a lot of investor interest after a slowdown period of last year.

That's a great sign.

Yeah.

Truvian CEO Jay We I had on a panel during TechCon SoCal in late May, which is a really interesting panel that really focused on how healthcare tech is really starting to find its groove on understanding the payer, the customer of kind of the health tech space, which is kind of carriers and insurance agencies, which is helping Truvian power forward. Truvian is a hardware medical device diagnostic so you can put in your blood and out comes a whole bunch of series of tests. Yes, it may sound like Theranos, but they are the good version of Theranos as they have stated from their beginnings all the way back to 2015 that they've been around. They have a really interesting co founder group actually there's people who co founded this that were the co founders of EcoATM, another kiosk device that took in old iPhones and paid out cash. So they've got some kind of serial roots here of of who has built this kind of tech. Though this is a bit of the holy grail of the diagnostic, of getting a whole bunch of diagnostics of your blood all by entering at once. So this round of funding is to get them to commercialization, really start getting some revenue from their designs here. So it's exciting to see them powering ahead. Congrats here to Jay and Dina and Mark and the whole team there. Let's talk through a few other rounds. Alvis, a logistics company and relatively new to be honestly they're new to the scene. We had the team at our recent industrial Tech founders lunch that we did and a follow on conversation logistics tech roundtable with Fox Freight. So we had team there who just raised a $20 million round. I believe this is their Series 8A round, right Fred?

Yeah, that's correct. They're actually new. New to me. I actually didn't know about them until they raised this round. And you know, logistics text is really, really growing. I mean as you, as you mentioned, you know, hosting some of those founders in San Diego. It's awesome to see this is like a growing space. And you know, truck, trucking, like platform science. They're one of the, the next unicorn companies in trucking and they do a little something a little different. Great software. But yeah, I'm definitely following this company going forward. It's great to see. This is a large, pretty large round for a tech company. One of the largest in San Diego this year.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting especially coming off the heels of that conversation we had with Orin, CEO of Flock Trade. Oren talked about his history of being first a trucking fleet owner, then a brokerage and then a software to more efficiently move boxes and fill up the back of trucks. And Alvis has a similar story, actually. In fact, CEO Nick Darman originally started a bootstrapped trucking brokerage and then built Alvis on top of it as a bit more of like ERP CRM behind the scenes to kind of help logistics brokers and carriers really just kind of manage and operate their business. So it is a SaaS business specifically focused, I would call it a vertical SaaS really focused on logistics tech in that regard. They're based in a beach, they have a really strong team, very local serial operators, which has been cool to see. So keep your eye out on Elvis here, that's for sure. Let's go into our next funding here. Sierra Guitars, a local music instrument maker, one of actually many. We'll talk about that in a second. But Sierra has kind of been a cool story to see them grow. They have some roots actually with new fund and Tech Coast Angels. They had a partnership with the San Diego airports. We could actually there's a kiosk we can go and pick up a guitar, play it for a little bit and maybe even buy one. But I think you've been in touch with them recently. What's news with them?

Yeah, they've seen some, some recent growth. I would categorize them as kind of more of a consumer company. Yeah, they created a innovative guitar that folds in half and they have a patent and so other guitar Companies haven't been able to replicate their design. It's ran by a CEO named Jonathan Spangler who formerly worked as a patent attorney I think at nuvasa or another a big company in San Diego. And yeah, they're based in Point Loma, have about eight employees. They've seen over 300, 350% growth in sales over the last Q1 of last year, going to Q1 of this year. And they've also increased their revenue and so they're finding some success. A lot of celebrities, musicians are using their guitar and providing some free advertising on social media and at concerts. So if you're interested in music tech, look out for that company. We'll link it in the show notes below.

Yeah, and Sadie's has a little subcluster of music tech, Taylor Guitars, headquartered in San Diego in El Cajon. Kind of an unknown story. They power probably 60 to 70% of most professional musicians play on a Taylor or Gibson at this point and maybe a Fender. But Taylor, I've been in the factory, I've done a tour. It's pretty cool to see what they do here. It was family owned, it might still be. So you know, we've got a little bit of music manufacturing in town. One of the biggest player, one of the biggest business units for the music industry called NAMM is based in Carlsbad actually. And they have the Museum of Making Music right below their headquarters. So anyone in music probably knows the annual big conference in Anaheim called the NAMM show. So all the music tech comes, both music instrument makers and the tech. And then anyone who plays it comes through. I only recently found out that NAMM was headquartered in Carlsbad, went to the museum which is pretty cool. You can play a ton of old school instruments. So and new like they've got some interesting kind of technology music. So worth checking out and maybe we'll see a CR guitar in Museum of Making Music there at some point too. So congrats to the team there as well. Let's talk some other non funding areas. SHIELD AI kind of a favorite of our show here. Just because they're one of our biggest leaders in software and autonomous defense. They have a story out by Brad Graves who is kind of talking about how some of Shield AI's new software is power. Some pretty new, some new jet fighters. So if you don't remember, SHIELD AI is maker of both autonomous software for existing jet fighters. They can actually turn an existing jet F16, F15 into an autonomous fighter. And then they have their own drones that they have designed that also have autonomous capabilities here. And so they've got a new fully autonomous version of an F16, which is pretty cool. No pilot needed. And we just delivered a bunch, apparently to Ukraine. So now we could be flying them, you know, for them here all the way down in San Diego. What else do you hear about this story of kind of the new fleet for SHIELD AI Fred?

I thought it was a great article written by Brad Graves in the business journal. They mentioned that the company's Hivemind software has a 99% win rate. Simulated F16 dogfights versus the active duty US Air Force and US Navy fighter pilots. And so, you know, they raised a lot of funding. They've raised, I think they raised a 200 million Series F earlier this year. They're very valued at 2.8 billion. And, you know, you see these fundraising rounds and you wonder, you know, is the company going to find success and be able to return capital to their investors? And I think showed AI is definitely, you know, closing business and continuing to grow the company. They have over 700 employees. A lot, a lot of those are San Diego jobs. And yeah, they are the largest defense tech company and kind of the darling in SoCal. And everyone's watching on how they perform. I think it's great to see them continue to find success. Yeah.

Another thing they mentioned in this article, which I love to see, is that they are now the software powering the Kratos Valkyrie autonomous fighting drone. Love seeing two local companies powering up together. Kratos is a drone maker, kind of like a General Atomic or a Northrop Grumman. But here in San Diego, they're a public company. We've mentioned them a few times. But now to see SHIELD AI software in their kind of main drone is pretty cool. That kind of is the power of the local defense tech network, I would imagine, in that regard, too. So great to see that. And we'll keep kind of reporting on the, on the growth of this, that's for sure. Let's talk through some other news here. Qualcomm has announced a major partnership with Manchester United, pretty much the biggest soccer football team on the planet that Snapdragon is powering. I believe they're the front of Jersey sponsor, plus a huge amount of other partnership. They were. Manchester United was just in town and I think you got to catch up with them. Did you, Fred?

Yeah. So I'll be talking with the CMO sometime next week. But yeah, this partnership is really a long time coming. Qualcomm has kind of taken The Stocker Award by storm after, you know, being a main sponsor for the Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego. And it was really for them to position themselves not as a semiconductor company but almost a consumer company. As you know, Qualcomm powers millions of cell phones across the world. They kind of want to be in front of consumers. Let them know that, you know, Qualcomm is powering that. And so they inked a partnership with Man United and they actually have a logo now on the soccer jerseys. It was a packed house, I think it was on Thursday. And it was, it was a great game. It was awesome. I think the CEO of Qualcomm was in attendance. A lot of Qualcomm employees were there and it's really just celebrating this marketing activation and partnership.

Love it. Love to see it. We think we're going to get dawn back on the podcast as well coming up soon here too. So keep an eye out for some more details around that. Let's round out the last one with a quick north county news win here. American Airlines announced that it is bringing a flight back to the Palomar air starting early 2025. It'll be a non stop Carlsbad to Phoenix flight. We know the Zonies love them some San Diego and now they're going to come not just take Coronado, they're taking north county as well too. We'd love to see at least me a North county person. Access to more flights would be amazing. I just recently utilized JSX flight to Vegas and man wouldn't it nice easy experience. So bring on more flights to hear. I know the EDC is a big part of that as well as City of Carlsbad. Matt Sanford shout out to you guys for getting us more flights that we can bring more capital and more startups to the San Diego area here and Fred and I will find a reason to go take a flight together out in Phoenix from there. Let's let's debrief on some events that we recently been at. Fred and I are always out there in the community seeing a lot of you and so keep sharing your events. We always look to the social coyote of what the events are coming out in the next few weeks. We were recently at Cheryl Goodman's book launch. She's put out a book called how to Win Friends and Influence Robots and it was an awesome event. She had a great panel of speakers and then a book signing that it's crazy. Long line people want. People were hungry for the book sign but really cool book. It's like kind of like a Intro to AI kind of a manual that really just, you know, doesn't assume that anyone knows anything yet. And it's pretty helpful manual in that regard. So good event, good book. Go buy the book, support a local author. I'll put a link here in the show notes we just had the Interlock Happy hour which was a fun time this week. It actually had some people drive down from LA and Orange county for it and then Hussein's just booming North County Tech mixer. Man, I heard like nearly 200 people this week or last week at his event at the Leucadian and I think he's now set and established. It's like third Wednesday of each month I think is his goal to do that. So keep an eye out for that. I know you've been doing before. I have yet to make one actually. So this next month, August I will be there, come find both of us. Though it's often that Fred and I are in different spots at an event and never actually make our way to each other, that's for sure. Other events coming up August 4th Brant Cooper Memorial service honoring really a local legend who inspired so many of us to do the thing. Go start something in the community and iterate. Don't wait, don't make it perfect. New York Times bestselling author of a multitude of books. We are going to gather at the beach 4pm on Sunday the 4th at Del Mar Powerhouse Park. The families graciously creating a whole, you know, kind of memorial area and if you just want to be around others who loved Brandt like we did, come on out and just share a little time together.

We are also putting out podcast episodes lately that are people recording just stories of how Brant brought the community together and them. So keep an eye on those as well. Moving into the tech events of the week. August 5th Carlsbad Clean Tech Gathering at Aptera, which is a local electric vehicle manufacturer. They are hosting a few dozen clean tech leaders and some investors at their place up in Carlsbad. I hear they may be giving some test drives to their new three wheel single passenger vehicle too. So come on out if you are in the clean tech space to meet some of that.

It's time for the San Diego Founders Hike.

Aug. 9 6:30am we are gathering at Torrey Pines beach south parking lot early in the morning, gather, go hike and maybe jump. A few of us will jump in the water together as well too. And then later in the month already EDC Summer Bash Fred, you've been to that.

You excited for the summer. Bass by the edc.

Yes, Summer Bash is always a good time. I think it's held in like Central Valley area, near, kind of near La Jolla. Should be a good time. Check it out. I'd like to kind of wrap up the last few events. Evo Nexus has a Demo Day on September 12th. Evo Nexus is one of the long standing tech accelerator programs in San Diego. And then also September 19, dev and data Night, hosted by one and only Fresh Brew Tech and CTO talks.

Yep, and might as well share a.

Few other big events coming up.

Carlsbad Tech gathering September 23rd at Shipcom's office. And then Connect's big Petco park takeover day is September 24th. And then, man, October's gonna be busy. We got Startup Week, we got Stocktoberfest. It's gonna be a busy fall.

So I feel like August is a time for us all to take a.

Lap, take that vacation or you know, put some blinders on, get some work done. Because as fall comes, we'll get busy again for some big events.

So we're excited about it and we're.

Looking forward to seeing all of you.

Out there in the community. So please share this with others, share.

News you about your company and we are happy to report on it.

As always, Fred, thanks so much and thank you all for listening.

Talk soon.

Always a pleasure, Neil.

Cheers.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech and tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got tacos. And tech is on smash for the green guacamole keeper Counting, counting beans Contador Quentan Frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping Fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times A craft beer and coffee my coating yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing Coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos stand in puesto lucha libre and sombrero Gotta shout out to cost Angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Hoya shows entrepreneurs travel get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana St. Be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders who believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon hashtag SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Come on.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party. The party started. Startups get the party? Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started.

You want tech and tacos? Tacos and tech? You know we got it, hey.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started? Startups get the party, Startups get the party started.

You want Tekken, tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it, Hey.