This Week in San Diego Tech News - March 25, 2024

Hello. Hello everyone.

Neil Bloom, Fred Greer, back at you. Hey Fred, how you doing?

Hey Neil. I'm doing pretty great. How are you doing?

Doing all right, thanks. Another, another good pod here with you as always. How has it been over the last week for you?

It's been great, man. I would say it's a busy week. Events are back in full function. I'm sure you've been attending a lot of events yourself. What would you say has been a highlight of your week so far?

Man, it's been busy. We put on the Dev and data night, like kind of a CTO focused night that we collaborated with Arcus Nexus. CTO talks 70 technical leaders like CTOs, VP of Engineers in the room, which was super fun and had a really diverse panel. So that was fun. And we'll talk a little bit more details about that. And then the city of Escondido actually hosted the winning teams from our AgTech Hackathon in front of like their city council and awarded all the teams with like a city proclamation which was really cool to do. And then I was in Tijuana for the day bringing a Carlsbad manufacturing company, getting them down to Tijuana. They showed me their brand new Tijuana manufacturing facility and then got them together with Arcus Nexus, the software development agency to collaborate on a panel that we're going to do in May. So yeah, it was a really busy week but it was cool to be on both sides of the border working on and collaborating and bringing groups together.

That's awesome. Yeah, I did see the Dev and data nights promotion and it looked like a great turnout. I actually ran into an attendee the next night. On Wednesday, Village up, which is a local startup organization, they hosted their Celebrating Women's Founders event in downtown San Diego and one of the attendees mentioned the data dev night was a huge success and I think it's really great that we have so many different things like the Tijuana event as well. Like that's, you know, a great opportunity to, you know, have cross border collaboration. Sounds really interesting.

Yeah, no it's, it's. The synergies are awesome. Like just the interconnectedness is great and I think you and I are kind of one of the, you know, few linkages here of doing a lot of the connecting. So it feels like it's a role that you and I have taken on. Just because we're out there, we might as well be connecting. I'm getting called like the router of the community, things going through. But my call would be more of us to be doing more of the connecting. You know, imagine if there was 20 breads and heels and microns out there, right, doing the interconnectedness. So I think it would speed up our connectedness and get more people connected more of the time. So, you know, I think it's on us to build a little bit of the connector playbook right now. So here's what works for how you connect people. Here's how I do it. Share that out with others so that people can take that playbook and do more connecting too. That would be my call to everyone else here, but we got a lot to talk about. Let's jump into the episode.

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

You want tech and tacos? Tacos. You know we got tacos in tecuzon smash border green guacamole keeper Countins 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 my coating yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo the taco standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Gotta shout out to cost angels Bob the ocean watch the sunset La Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside the Tijuana est? 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 sdtacles with your host, Neil Bloom.

Come on.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party.

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. Thanks to our partners, Cox Business is a leading provider of technology solutions and we're looking for people like you to grow our local sales business. We reward your hard work with a competitive compensation package, plus commission, healthcare awards and recognition for top performers and opportunities for career advancement. We're on a quest to find someone whose savvy sales skills will help keep our customers smiling. Visit CoxBusinessJobs.com to learn more and be a part of our customer focused team.

I'm Neal Bloom. Fresh Brewed Tech Tacos and Tech Podcast really about Connecting people and the tech community and through that has enabled me to also connect through capital. And so Interlock Capital is an investor community of operators and founders where we invest in companies through our domain expertise. And this is Fred Greer and I'm Fred.

I'm a tech journalist in San Diego. I also run a VC newsletter called Business of San Diego. It's really highlighting fast growing companies as well as the VCs that back them. And excited to be back this week to talk about the biggest news in San Diego tech and business.

Man, some of the biggest news of the year has been bio, bio, bio. Whether it's Bio fundings or Bio M and A or even Bio ipo. So Bio is dominating a little bit of a lot of the news lately. You want to jump us into a few of these fundings that got announced just in the last week?

Yeah, this was a hot week for biotech companies. We had two companies raise some VC funding. The first one was a company called Capstan Therapeutics. They originally set out to raise 500 million. They actually end up closing 175 million round backed by Johnson and Johnson Pfizer, Eli Lilly, another big pharma. Natalie Rocha from the Union Tribune did a great piece on that if you wanted to get the details. Also in Grow Therapeutics raised a series B157 million which is incredible. These biotech companies, they need a lot of capital to, you know, move forward with clinical trials as well as scalp their team. And so that's, you know, a really good strong sign that, you know, VC funding is still strong. I think earlier this year we hosted an event and VCs wasn't sure, sure if they were going to do as many deals as last year but I think it's for sure this year it's already picking up with these massive VC deals.

Sounds like maybe we need to do a bio VC panel to like just hear what the excitement is, right? Maybe. I know you wrote a good article within the last quarter or two about biotech funding, some of the top fundings there. But maybe we need to, maybe we need to do an event just to hear, I want to hear the excitement that biotech PCs have right now because man, the purses are open en masse. So yeah, between them, CarlsMed, another biotech company, they're more on the device side. They've got a spine device that also has both a hardware, a 3D printed hardware and a software component to it. And I think they're a new fund portfolio company, Carlsbad based Carlsmed just raised a Series C funding round as well too. So yeah, hot and heavy. Which brings us to kind of the Q1VC funding report which you just put out recently. You want to give us kind of an overview which is linked in the show notes here. Like what were your big takeaways from Q1 in general for fundings?

Yeah, so the headline for the article was San Diego Q1 VC activity surpasses 1 billion. Biotech dominates with IPOs and acquisitions. We had two really big IPOs earlier this year and those included, I can't pronounce his name but Cantono Therapeutics and they were finding an IPO seeking 150 million balance. Bio also went public seeking 100 million and then Vray Clothing is reportedly to go IPO later this year. And then we looked at the top, you know, tech deals, top biotech deals, top consumer deals. The ones that stood out to me, you know, people forget that, you know, San Diego has tech companies and biotech and defense tech, you know, Shield AI, they raised 500 million earlier this year to kick off the year. Followed by a few other companies that raise, you know, a few other rounds and consumer as well. We had M2 ingredients, they raised 25 million. And there's a food production company, light helmets raised 10 million which is a helmet manufacturer in Carlsbad. So really, it's really just highlighting, you know, it's not just a life science company hub. We have tech, life science, consumer and tracking well from a VC funding perspective.

Well, that's great. Yeah, Brilliant is solid. Puts us on the path of, you know, another 4 or 5 billion a year hopefully, which would be very solid and in line with last year and still way above kind of our five year average. So that's great to hear. Hopefully some tech, some more tech deals coming. Because BIO is beating us and I'm competitive so you know, I want to see at least the 5050 split that would be still continued progress and improvement, if not, you know, tech to continue going forward there as well too. But like we're seeing Bio from the full market from fundings. M and A and IPOs are all happening right now. Some story we should actually talk about in the future is that we're hearing some positive progress on biotech leasing happening in the downtown area. So there's been a lot built up for, you know, try to get Bio to come downtown and, and I believe there were some announcements about buildings actually getting to 50%, you know, leases going. So we'll talk about that in the future. But this is great. And this is great progress, I would say, for us in general as a community. Let's talk about some tech funding. BrainCorp, this is a company that builds a smart brain to kind of dumb machines, as they've called it. So take like a. Their first product was this floor scrubber, which traditionally is pushed around by someone to clean floors maybe in like a supermarket or a mall. And Brain Corp added brain to it and some sensors and enables it to be autonomous. And so Brain Corp is doing that to a number of machines and they've taken on a recent $32 million investment. They, I believe they took softbank money in the 2020 and 2021 timeframe. You know, one of 10 companies, I believe in San Diego that has done that and you know, has had the same as everyone else, has had rode high on funding and then had some pullback a little bit on customers in that regard as well too. But seeing that they've taken on new funding is positive in that regard. What else did you take away here from Brain Corp's announcement?

Yeah, no, I love to see additional investment. Brain Corp is one of the kind of OG tech companies. They were founded in 2009. They have around 220 employees based in Sorrento Valley. They've raised total funding of around 193 million venture capital. So on the tech side, they're obviously one of the leaders, most successful tech companies in San Diego. And I hope one day they do go public and remain in San Diego. But yeah, they're creating AI software that's been used and I think their devices and their products are in a lot of the Walmarts around the world. And so they have some strong partnerships. And so this continued investment will hopefully allow them to continue to win and be successful.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love to see, you know, a few different areas here within San Diego where we're bringing AI and kind of IOT to other markets. Right. So this is kind of stacking on some industry expertise that San Diego tech companies and talent have of kind of leveling up machines through kind of the IoT or connected devices world. I believe there is like this spin out from Qualcomm story. I believe there is some connections of Brain Corp from Qualcomm, maybe even Qualcomm Ventures invested. I can't remember that, but for some reason that reminds me of that. Let's also talk about Tener hallisiolu. San Diego's one of the biggest super angels of San Diego. UCSD alum, first employee of Facebook. He was their hardware and infrastructure leader back in the day. He built out you know, pretty much their entire server system back in 2004, 5, 6, time frame, left Facebook long ago, came back to San Diego to be a professor in the computer science department and then spun up and during that time invested in I think over 200, maybe even over 250 San Diego startups, including my startup long ago portfolio where he invested and invested in like I said, a number of companies. Kind of built a brand now around on the investment side called Keshe Ventures which Andy White helps to run. And he's focused a little bit investment and energy where he's put his time and energy into data science meets kind of the AI world which four years ago he was calling a data science approach and even started the Data Science alliance really like funded the non profit and funded the data, the Halasiolo Data Science Institute at ucsd. I think really when, when he says data science unless I want to speak for them but really was not just about data science but data science flowing into algorithm building, flowing into AI. And so it's been great to see them riding that wave or really leading it within San Diego of building great town pools, getting great lecturers and putting people to work and great careers locally. So you know, a lot to be said for everything that Tener and Kishev has done for the community but he's not even done there's, he's even, he's doing more, he's given more. You want to give us kind of the latest news story that he's doing next?

Yeah. So basically he's donating 25 million to the UCSD's Alumni Triton center which is being built kind of in the heart of ucsd. I'm a proud UCSD alum so, so is Neil Bloom here and I'm really excited. Continued investment. You know, you might recall in 2019, 2017 Tener donated 75 million to to establish the Data Science Institute. And beyond that he also runs Data Science alliance which empowers women and diverse folks to learn more about data science and have careers in that area. And you know UCSD has a strong life science presence. A lot of spin outs come out of the come out of the labs and professors start companies. And I think the data science thing, it's really interesting because hopefully you know, more tech folks will spin out of UCSD and we're starting to see that now. But having life science and tech, UCSD and someone like Tenair who's you know, really invested in the ecosystem, it's A huge win for San Diego at a, at a large.

Yeah, it's huge. And he's doing it, I would say at a, at a big scale in terms of bringing outside talent to San Diego for it. You know, I know he has helped bring some great lecturers and academics to ucsd, which has been really helpful. He even I remember at a past when he did the data science naming, I think they even brought Bill Nye the Science Guy to San Diego, who has actually continued to come and do like a talk series as well too. So it got Bill to engage locally not just once, but multiple times now. So, you know, I can't say thank you enough to what Tener and his family have done for the San Diego region. And this is just another way to help Tritons stay connected to their San Diego roots as well. I mean, I find a lot of alum like myself who were fortunate to go to UCSD and live in San Diego dream of coming back. So the fact that they've already experienced San Diego for school and now we can say hey, like actually tech jobs for you as well. Come on back. It's not a hard sell. So yeah, excited to see where the alumni office continues to take this. That's our news for now, but some events coming up. We already kind of talked about the Dev and Data night that happened last week, but actually something to look for in June. We'll be doing our next Dev and Data Night with CTO talks at BrainCorp actually. So look for news around that coming in the next few months. Some events also coming up. Harpoon Ventures Defense Tech Meetup So they did their, their first event in downtown a few weeks ago was really well attended. They still had, they had a wait list to do it and they've already announced their second meetup coming up in April. So we've linked to it in the show notes. If you are a defense tech founder in any aspect of defense focus, make sure you sign up for their next event coming up here as well as Techcon SoCal is coming back. So Techcon SoCal was a great event. I think it was January pre Covid just before COVID happened. Does that sound right, Fred? That was correct, yeah. Awesome event that Faisal put on. Faisal is the CTO of Sleep Number, a Bay Area company but he is based in San Diego and with him and some friends put on the first year at Sony in Rancho Bernardo and He's announced year two which really excited to see it back. It's happening May 24th in Mission Valley and his Real big goal is to connect the Bay Area and San Diego. So he's bringing a lot of his Bay Area connections to town both on the technical leaders and investor side. And a number of us like Fred and myself are helping co organize some other speaking engagements and speakers as well too. I know I'm looking forward to doing a talk on autonomous vehicles. Like I don't know if I'll moderate it yet, but I'm kind of helping organize just because we've got so much land, air and sea kind of autonomous connected companies here now as well as a recent Bay Area CEO panel. Would be kind of cool to talk about whether it's the, you know, linear is now here and click up like it'd be really cool to hear people's perspectives on, before, during and after the San Diego move. So anyway we're linking it here in show notes. It's just been announced and if you'd like to come join for the day, you know, come out to Techcon SoCal in May. Any events on your horizon there?

Fred, I just want to say TechCon, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be one of the biggest events for folks who are interested in tech and vc. Last time I attended Sway Ventures were there, you know, very successful VCs like Lux Capital was in attendance, met some luminary startup founders and so if you're interested in anything big, tech startups, you know, AI is going to be a hot topic, you know, definitely get involved in. They're looking for sponsors. So if you are looking to, you know, get in front of this type of audience. Executives, C Suite Reach out to first Basil.

Yeah, reach out. Fred and I, we're happy to connect you directly to them as well as always. Look see for the full list of events on the Social Coyote which we link here. I know an event I'm looking forward to next week is March Mingle, one of San Diego's oldest yearly events. I think they're on like year 18 or 19 and it's going to be held at the Balihi, which should be really fun. So come find me. I'm actually going to be wearing my Social Coyote, brand new coyote that Jonah Peak made for me. So come find me in a fun specialty for the night and have some tiki drinks at the Valley High. What, what's on your radar for the next week or so, Fred?

You know, I think that's it for now. We'll, we'll keep talking about events as they come up and we have a full plate and you know, lots of opportunities to get involved, so stay tuned. And we also post all the code cool events on LinkedIn and Twitter, so definitely follow us there.

Yeah, make sure you're following fred substack@businessofsandiego substack.com make sure you are following Fresh Brew Tech freshbroodtech.com and tacos and Tech Podcast so you can get notified when this podcast is out live. And thank you all for continuing to share this with others so that everyone is in the loop on what's going on here in San Diego. Thanks again everyone. Have a good week. Thanks Fred.

Always a pleasure.

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 tacos and tech is on smash for the green guacamole keeper Counting counting beans 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 my coating yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo the taco standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to coast angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Hoya shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside the Tijuana est 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 Techo with your host Neil Bloom 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 tech in tacos, tacos in 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 tech and tacos Tacos in tech you know we got it hey.