This Week in San Diego Tech News - Feb 19, 2024

Hey Fred, how you doing? Welcome back everyone.

Hey Neil. Glad to be back.

It is a another beautiful week here in San Diego. Fred and I are still coming off the glow of our recent VC Outlook 2024 event that we did that we'll touch on but it's pretty fun event, huh?

Fred, it was fantastic. Thank you for everyone that turned out and yeah, still buzzing from that day. Yeah.

Well we got plenty to talk here. Wide ranging from enterprise Qualcomm news to startup ecosystem resources. So let's dive into it.

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 Keep accountants counting beans. Conan 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 coding yoga posi 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 to Tijuana est Be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders who believe stars are within reach we interviewing founders who be shooting for the Moon SDTechOS 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. 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 Neil Bloom with FreshProotech and the talking Tech Podcast as well as Interlock Capital and Investment Community. And this is Fred Greer.

And I'm Fred Greer, startup journalist in San Diego. I also am an author of Business of San Diego Substack, covering venture capital and startups in the ecosystem and happy.

To be here we are as well. And let's take us to the top with Qualcomm, largest company by market cap in San Diego county and had a pretty good earnings report that just came out in the last few weeks. They had their call talking through the last quarter's earnings. You know, you've dove into earnings of public companies. What, what, what'd you come away with here, Fred?

Yeah, so I think the takeaway is that Qualcomm's earnings are up. They went up, I think around 10% over the last 12 months. And Qualcomm is obviously the largest semiconductor company in San Diego. And you know, they made some cuts, some layoffs, but despite that they've found some success, success in their different products. And I think we talked about this, me and you, Neil, that Qualcomm is not just, you know, a chip company. They do a lot of different things. They do AI, they do automotive and they're placing their bets in startups and they have a corporate venture arm and so they do a lot of different things. And you know, owners of the stocks are probably are really happy right now with how Qualcomm is performing during a slow technology market.

Yeah, Qualcomm, I think locals maybe feel like they've understood that Qualcomm is needed to diversify ever since the first Apple lawsuit came out years ago or Apple Qualcomm, you know, there was a bunch thrown back and forth at each other way back to, you know, almost two presidents ago that even got to the federal level of helping Qualcomm kind of stay independent. It almost had a takeover offer, you know, and by and far Qualcomm has managed a diversification process pretty well, meaning it needed to, it knew that its technology may get designed out at some point. We see Apple coming into the San Diego market. Some speculate for Qualcomm talent, some just to tap into general talent pool. But in either case, Qualcomm has taken a role in getting deep into the auto world and many other connected devices world including healthcare, including drone and other mobility products. So that's changing up the company significantly. Something that a company that used to boast it was a licensing only kind of revenue model. Well, it's, it's taken its product, created product lines and, and putting it into new platforms and that seems to be working here. You also mentioned something around, you know, had some layoffs and something that actually was brought up during our VC outlook call was that, you know, this is kind of the third downturn in the last 20 years. Companies are starting to like get used to it almost. They had a playbook of how to do it. And so it seems like a lot of tech companies did the layoffs to get ahead of the bad times as opposed to reactively do stuff during the bad times. And companies are, you know, not necessarily. I don't, I want to say thriving because I don't know per se every company. But it was not a reactive cut, like cut the fat. It was, let's trim to, you know, focus on staying alive and focus on the areas that we know we can expand. Anything come to mind you around that as well too?

No, I would just say we talked pretty in depthly. We had Mike Freeman from Union Tribune who was on the podcast I think a few months ago who really delve into the, you know, the complexities of Qualcomm and how they've been able to remain a strong player in this space. I mean they obviously had to navigate almost, almost big takeover. And I would say kudos to their leadership. You know, they've, they made some hard decisions but they've also made some, some big bets and they've paid off. And so you know, Qualcomm is, is, is obviously still a big player in the space and remains. But yeah, it's great to see that they're continuing to find success even in this new era of, of, of you know, slowdown. Yeah.

And we've seen just recently some other like leadership changes, you know, promoting the CFO of Qualcomm, longtime kind of financial leader Akash Pakiwala taken on the COO role. So you know, significantly more ownership from going from leading the financial organization to leading the go to market organization and operations and it. And I think we'll see more leadership changes there as this company changes, which I think is great for San Diego. You want a company that is iterating and is, you know, keeping up with the times if you will. So we always like to kind of talk about big tech all the way down to small business tech. And so that actually brings us to our next topic. An organization that both Fred and I have gotten to know over the years is black TechLink. Let's jump right into that. We been a supporter of Elizabeth Cotton since this was, you know, a little kind of side hobby. I feel like I remember that pre Covid she was working on like a woman's venture summit in Long beach and had you know, wanted to bring it to San Diego, did stuff in Escondido National City really focusing on bringing resources and events to underserved communities. Fred, have you gotten involved in black TechLink?

Yeah. So Elizabeth Cotton is a great person to know. Black TechLink is more of a nonprofit focused and their whole specialization is around helping black professionals get jobs in technology. And as you can tell that industry is not very diverse and so I think the work she's doing is very, very important. I actually participated as a panelist where we talked about how can black professionals learn about tech careers and how can they upskill themselves and advance and take advantage of these high paying careers. And so I think the work she's doing is really, really important. And they've worked with people like Qualcomm, Union Bank, Cal Western, they're all giving back and sponsoring her events and she does these monthly and they're focused around different groups. So I think she partners with like law schools and she also has a golf event and they're really, you know, worth checking out.

That's awesome. Well, we'll put a link in here and make sure that the, the links are also flowing into the social coyote Jonah Peak's event list. He is becoming the de facto event of the week listing, that's for sure. So keep it up Elizabeth and keep sending us. I know she's great at, she will DM me on Instagram her next event links which is always a great reminder. Appreciate her being diligent doing that one to one pushing there as well. Let's talk through another local company here that been seeing some traction with lately, a company called Wealthy. This is a kind of a healthcare platform that was developed by Dr. Steven Moyo and I believe, I feel like I met him, I think he went through the Jacobs, the San Diego Jacobs business incubator. Is that true? Do you remember Stephen from that group? Yeah. Awesome. It is so great seeing this platform continue to grow. Do you know much about Wealthy?

Yeah, so they're, they're, they're founded in 2022 it says and yeah, they raised about 800k in VC funding and they were actually supported by Google, Google for startups and so they have some credibility. They've been to accelerated program. They launched a kind of a mobile platform focused on mental health and wellness for diverse people. And so you know the founder Steven Moya, he's someone who's resilient and he comes from the healthcare background and it's great to see. He launched, he's launched a local health tech startup. They're very early stage. I think they only have like six employees but you Know the, the founder is really, he's legit. I remember talking to him and interviewing him and he's definitely a company to look out for. They're doing something really unique. It just you know, delivering you know, health equity through mobile platform which is pretty unique.

He's also, but he's also got this great piece around the talent aspect too. So making sure that there is a, a funnel of talent for healthcare make sure that the healthcare worker population reflects the actual population that needs the most help in healthcare as well too. So that's, it's pretty awesome to see the iteration I would say the platform and the kind of the bolt on pieces as he's learned. We'll link to a story here from the business journal and talk about some very specific patients that he's worked with to learn what are the areas that need growing from a healthcare talent platform. But that's great to see wealthy continue to do. Well, let's talk about kind of a one piece of that we talk about in an ecosystem is the recycling of talent and capital and knowledge if you will. And I don't know if we actually covered it but Hookah Hook it a long time sports tech platform that was really a software platform to help measure the impact of sponsorships and other kind of sports engagement, if you will. They sold within the last year or two and they were at it for a while. Scott Tilton is his founder and CEO or co founder and there's a lot of former Hook employees that have gone on to do other sports tech platforms in the community which is so just in that regard, just having a whole, you know, place where talent grew up, built platforms that obviously sold and went on to go other do sports tech platforms. That's a great sign. And now Scott is coming out of stealth on a new consumer packaged goods CPG platform called krpn. Do you know have they. Have you gotten the scoop yet or you're about to?

Yeah. So this is a, definitely a stealth story. And Scott Tillman is, you know, he's a legendary entrepreneur. He's been in the, in the scene for quite some time. I've heard about him through a guy named Bob Reiff who is the executive director of a group called San Diego Sports Innovators. And they're all focused on CPG founders and lifestyle life, lifestyles businesses, clothing, you, you name it. They, they focus on like the beach fitness, consumer lifestyle brands. And he told me that Scott Tilman is like the top, top entrepreneurs. You should talk to him at the time he's running Hook it. He sold that to a company called Core, which is like a New York based firm for, you know, millions of dollars. He's now started this new company, krbn, which is more focused on consumer products. So far on the website they have, they sell hats, iPhone cases and it's very focused on different lifestyle sports type of things like snowboarding and hiking. So I don't really know too much about, about it. I'm going to send Scott a note to interview him and hopefully we can, you know, find out what, what they're trying to build with this new brand.

Yeah, it looks like kind of a curated, you know, either marketplace or just brand of curating products for a very specific niche within men's, you know, active sports lifestyle. So yeah, and it looks like they're already selling stuff from hats, belts to iPhone cases, but for very active people. So great to see. San Diego is such a sports tech hub. There's just so much here from the apparel like the Vuoris to the equipment like Callaway Golf, that you're right that SDSI San Diego Sports Innovators is this, you know, powerhouse actually of bringing being kind of the hub of the community for connecting people to build companies like this. And so they did an event recently that we saw a few people of our, of our network, like Sam from Visor, I know was at the event, posted a photo of her with Bill Walton. What'd you hear about the SDSI annual event that they just did?

Yeah, you know, sdsi, they do a lot of different gatherings where they bring together like local, local entrepreneurs and network with each other. This event was pretty unique. They actually brought together, I think 10 to 15 entrepreneurs that they're supporting and they invited them to Bill Walton's house. Bill Walton is a famous basketball player. He's now retired, but he resides in San Diego and does a lot of philanthropy efforts and supports companies. And we have a long time partnership with sdi. So they invited him to his house, they invited the startup founders to his house to have a conversation and learn more about his involvement in the community. I wasn't there, but it's just great to see that there's community building happening outside of these companies who are really growing really fast. There's opportunities to network and meet other folks. And so if you're interested in learning more, I would definitely check out Sports Innovators program.

Yeah, Bill Walton, as legendary as is in basketball, which he is, and he's still actively like calling games and everything. He's also legendary and actually really showing up in the community he has been I've been at events where he shows up and he like has a presence physically and you know emotionally changes the mood there. By the way he brings his own chair because he's so tall. Chris needs to sit wherever he goes. So he, he shows up nearly seven foot towering guy and then plop. There goes the giant director's chair that Bill plops into and pretty much holds court. So amazing person but also amazing to our business community as well in that he opens his his his house and his knowledge and his community up to Speaking of other events that happened same last week was our VC Outlook event that we kind of alluded to. This was maybe the first of an annual event that we do that really brings together VCs, VC backed founders or soon to be and the community around that those two kind of worlds really the VC back to CEO that support system as well. We had, we had over 70 plus RSVPs to this and probably that many who came as well. I didn't actually do a final headcount but I know we were over 70 in the end around that. That was hosted at Deloitte's office at 1 Passo in Del Mar. Gunderson Detmer law firm was awesome enough to also sponsor alongside Deloitte. And then Fred led a great panel with three VCs including my partner Alba Shara of Interlock, kind of focusing on the earliest stages of of capital investment. Brian Messick of Ancona Capital kind of the elbow stage or 5 million of annual revenue or further and Brian Lagner of Industry Ventures which is both a fund of funds investing in early stage funders and later stage series B and later tech companies. What was your big takeaways from from the panel and the events?

Yeah, I would just say it was an awesome event. I mean the, the quality of attendees. We had about 20 managing director, managing partner level. We also had about 50 CEOs of venture backed startups there. And for those who couldn't attend, you know we were going to put out a podcast, standalone podcast of the conversation as well as an article that really summarizes what was discussed. Eric Weiss had a great post on LinkedIn. He he called it Capital Efficiency is a New Growth. Enough doom and gloom about fundraising climates. There are eager investors who are looking for great companies to invest in. And he actually pulled a quote from my conversation that there is a ton of money out there to invest but you know we need to know. You just need to know your customer that they they love your solution and that you can deliver it at cost efficiently. And so you know, I think people, from what I've heard from the attendees, they found it valuable and you know, investors are still writing checks, but they're choosing to work with companies that are focused on efficiency versus growth at all costs.

Yeah, really candid conversations, which was great to hear. I've already, we've put out surveys. I think we got like 11 or 12 responses I need to share with you. And people are really happy with it as well. So expect for us to do more but also expect content to come out from this. So Fred's going to have an article and I think we'll put out the audio from this as well too. As long as all the panels give me the thumbs up. So keep an eye out possibly from that. And thanks again Fred. That was really fun to do together. We got some other events coming up. So the association for Corporate Growth ACG as it's known, has got its annual event coming up here called Capcom Capital Con Conference happening this week in San Diego, February 21st, 22nd, 23rd. I'm actually going to be speaking at it. I'm on a panel about growth capital and just like what's the state of it right now? So kind of a continuation of the conversation we had last week. But this group, ACG is a bit, bit broader than just VC backed tech companies. There is really all versions of capital allocators are here. You know, I see just as much private equity investors who maybe just are investing in kind of bootstrapped, bootstrapped businesses and getting their first outside capital that may not be maybe more like a tech enabled service. And just as much I'm seeing, you know, kind of tech enabled service kind of companies too. So it's going to be a little bit broader audience but it's great to be having them all come together under one roof and sharing notes. I know we've already done like a pre panel call and some of the things I'm going to, I'll give a little tease to the panel is that there's two areas where I'm seeing interesting things. I'm seeing the exited founder maybe of a tech company want to do company two that maybe is more like rollup model. So I want to go take the knowledge I had in scaling something from small to massive. Why don't I go buy into something and what's the platform to go do that? So that's one area that I'm going to be talking a little bit about as well as kind of the state of capital right now so like down rounds, flat rounds versus companies maybe three years or older versus brand new companies within the last year and how different it is for them to get capital after the post, you know, AI world and post 2021. Crazy funding environment. So those are two areas that I know I'm going to spend some time talking about at this week. You went and spent some time with ACG in the last week. Yeah. What was the guy?

Yeah, I did a nice piece on them. If you want to go to my sub stack. I wrote about what is ACG San Diego, but essentially the high level, they're focused on bringing more private equity to San Diego and they do this annual capital conference each year, the next, this one's coming up next week and it's really about, you know, bringing together middle market CEOs. These are companies that are in different industries, not all startups and tech. It can be anything. And these companies need, need access to exit opportunities, access to capital and, etc. And so this group has been around for 70 plus years. They have chapters across the world and they have one in San Diego, Jay McCabe, he's the one organizing the event this year. I think they're doing a great job of really bringing together high quality CEOs but then also private equity firms into the area. Some that come to mind are Riverside & Co. Which is really a huge PE firm. Another one is HCAP Partners. They should be there and you know, a whole suite of others. Another thing about ACG that, that was interesting is a guy named John Morris is hosting CEO circles. So basically it's a peer group where CEOs pay a yearly fee and I think once a month they meet in person to talk about their business challenges and get advice. I was actually at the most recent CEO Circle in Del Mar last week. I got to hear about some of the, the conversations that came up and it's really great because all different types of businesses, different stages and talking about, you know, what are they, what are the key challenges that they're, that they're going through today and they all can share their resources and knowledge and help each other, you know, fight through those blocks. And so a really cool, cool group to look into ACG San Diego and we'll have more when, when that conference happen.

All right, cool. Yeah, I don't know if. Are you going to be there this week at some of it?

I'll be there. All right.

I'll be there as well. I know that. I think I'm talking on the panel. The breakout session panel is for Me is I think on Thursday the 22nd. So I will be there. Looking forward to it. And coming up soon we keep, we've talked about a few times the ag, the Escondido AGX startup hackathon coming up March 7th, 8th, 9th got over 50 people who have submitted ideas that they want to present at this hackathon. Now I was just looking through, the ideas are wide ranging. Like you know you've got biology soil amendment ideas, we've got you know, drone and cyber related secure the farm kind of ideas. We've even got like branding ideas around like how do we make San Diego known as an ag hub and specifically like the Napa of Avocados branding ideas. This is awesome. This one tells us the kind of mentors to bring forward during the hackathon which I'm curating now based on who these ideas are. But if you don't have an idea like come join someone's idea and kind of the beauty is within 50 hours we're gonna, you're gonna learn how to, you know, take an idea and flesh it out and determine if it's something worth working on based on customer feedback. So getting pretty excited for that and it's coming up soon. We've now confirmed not just 10,000 in cash prizes but but also 10,000 in equivalent incubation for the top three companies at Aquilius. So we're going to put the top three companies through the three month incubator of Equilius which is a newer co working meets incubator program up in North County. So you know more outside prizes coming. And if you are a potential sponsor out there that want to offer some sort of prize to these winners, come talk to me. I'd love to have you involved to make sure that we have startups not just work on an idea over 50 hours but day after they keep, they have stuff to keep working on. So thanks everyone so far who's participated in that. Anything to wrap on your end, Fred.

I know, I think that's great. I love that you guys are doing this, this hackathon. I'm sure it's gonna be a great turnout. If you're looking for more events to get involved in the community, please subscribe to the Social Coyote. We'll link it to it in the show notes. And we have a lot of events coming up so there's a lot of opportunities to stay involved in San Diego.

Yes. Well, we will see you all soon. Thanks again for joining in here. Remember to share this with those who are not as in the know or new to town? New to the tech ecosystem. Fred, have a good rest of the weekend. Happy President's Day and we'll see you soon.

Likewise. Thanks, man.

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 and tech, you know we got tacos and techies on smash border green guacamole keep accountants counting beans Contador cuentan 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 coding yoga pot fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo, the tacos standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero got a shout out to coast 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, 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 TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Come on.

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, 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 text, you know we got it, hey, you know we got it, you know we got it, you know we got it.