This Week in San Diego Tech News - Sept 21, 2023

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Hello, this is this week in San Diego Tech news with Neil and Fred. Hey Fred.

Hey Neil, glad to be back.

Good to see you. Great event together at Fashionphile bringing together fashion and beauty tech founders. Thank you for making that happen.

Yeah, it was a great event that we had about 2020 consumer founders in Carlsbad which was great to get everyone together under one roof. So thanks for helping organize that as well and Sarah and team for welcoming us.

Yeah, yeah, it was great. We'll do more of those, but if you don't know, I'm Neil Bloom, Freshproof tech talkers and Tech podcast and Interlock Capital. This is Fred.

Hey everyone. My name is Fred Greer, longtime tech journalist and author of SD Founders Substack, a deeply rooted, you know, top technology and venture capital publication covering startups in San Diego. And happy to be here.

And you have a great substack as the founders that you're putting out some great content. So everyone go and subscribe to to Fred's newsletter and subscribe to the tacos and tech podcast that you'll get these sent right to your wherever you listen to podcasts as soon as we launch and release them. We had a lot of news, both fundings events, but the biggest news really is a missing journalist that has been beloved in the community that we got to talk about. The Union Tribune has had some shakeup unfortunately. It's one of the few sources of business news locally that we get and long time tech writer Mike Freeman, I almost said tech Diego, his Twitter handle has not been writing for a few months now, not at the Union Tribune and we really miss his voice. What do you, what do you know about this, Fred?

Yeah, it's pretty sad to hear the news, but Union Tribune was sold to I think a private equity firm not too long ago, about two months ago and in that process they had to let go of some of their, their staff members. Sometimes some of the, these were longtime reporters. Mike Freeman is a tech reporter and he's covered the banking industry, the golfing industry and just the startup community at large. I got my start in the ecosystem reading Mike Freeman's work and it's kind of sad to hear but he's no longer with the Union Tribune. So it's a huge loss for not only for the publication but for San Diego at large. And so just want to call that out, you know, thank you for, you know, all the great stories you've brought to our readers and keeping us informed of what's happening in San Diego and we hope to carry on that Legacy.

Yeah, I mean his, his voice on big tech too. Just be able to have the history and knowledge to know what's going on at Qualcomm with this lawsuit, what's happening behind the scenes, what Illumina is going on. Like we go to him and we've had him on the podcast. He used to join our clubhouses, he's even joined our Twitter spaces. Like he's, you know, accessible but also a great journalist. So Mike, if you're listening, we miss you and we hope we can bring you back into bring your voice back because we miss it. So thank you. Some other news stories that we've picked up on some companies who are raising right now one of the largest defense tech startups in town, SHIELD AI. Right, Fred.

Yeah, showed AI is kind of a unicorn, not only in San Diego, but for defense tech. They're like the largest, one of the largest players. They've only been around for under 10 years. They're rumored right now to be in talks to raise another fundraising round. I just thought they raised around last year. They're continuing to raise and this round they close will put them at a 2 point billion valuation, which was massive news. It hasn't went through yet, but it's currently a scoop in Bloomberg if you're interested in checking that out. I think that's huge news and you know, continue sign that this company is growing and finding success in this industry.

Yeah, what's. Well, first of all, SHIELD AI had their roots in the consumer hardware space. A previous company Ryan did was in Evo, Nexus and then went all in on defense tech. And they have really two main focuses. They've got their own drones that they have built and they've also bought other drone companies and then they've got the software aspect where they that which power their own drones but also have been used as autopilots for existing fighter jets and other planes. So they're actually turning existing defense hardware into drones themselves, which is mind blowing. And especially when you see the news within what's going on in Ukraine of how much drone technology is just being actually used to make big inroads. You gotta imagine SHIELD AI is one of the people at the forefront of pushing this for kind of the next wave of how we build design airplanes and UAVs and drones in general. So yes, super interesting to see their growth, but not surprising. So keep it up. Brian and team. Next company that, that we want to talk through Linear app that I got to meet at an event that you recently did with with Silicon Sands Linear App team. Are they new to town? Is that true?

Yeah, they actually are pretty new. So the, the founder and CEO, his name is Kari Saran. He actually moved to Encinitas a few years ago. I, I saw him post a, a tweet that went kind of viral. It had a thread on why he moved to San Diego. Basically was around better quality of living and how North Counties has a bustling, you know, growing hub for talent. And so I think his co founder is still in the Bay Area. However, they have raised money from Sequoia. They actually just raised 35 million and they're profitable, which is great to hear because a lot of these companies, they raise funding to get profitability. But from what the article you know, know detailed from Forbes is that they're valued at around 400 million and you know, they have found success developing tools for developers. And he's ex Airbnb alum I think Coinbase president did a post about it. She's an early angel investor. So they really have the backing of Silicon Valley supporting them and I think they're going to continue to, to grow. And it's great to hear that, you know, the founders here in San Diego, such a great San Diego success story.

It is. That's awesome. And that he's coming out to events is a good sign too that he wants to get out and meet people. That means we got to keep putting on more stuff because people are interested for sure. Any other news on your end or you want to jump to some events?

Let's jump into events. I mean also just want to call out that acquire.com they're moving, you know, to sit back to San Diego. They're a Bay Area founded firm and they created a marketplace for startups and small businesses to get acquired. The founder, Andrew, he's moving his office to La Jolla. The lease starts October 1st and so there's just a growing hub in San Diego and it's great to see more founders choose San Diego to grow their companies.

Yes, yes, yes. We love seeing that Andrew is back Business apps. Their headquarters was in La Jolla. It's actually the exact same office. He got it back. So we're excited to do that. And Interlock's looking forward to doing some events together with them around business buyers because that's a big chunk LP community of ours are exited founders who are looking to do roll ups next and we're looking at, we're already in. We're talking to the acquire team about doing some events together around that to bring in Buyers and sellers of businesses together in the room. Events. Man, we, we have to talk about Innovation day. Amazing day. 3000 plus people like what a cross section of the community. I averaged about moving about 10ft an hour because of people. The density of seeing so many friends but also meeting new companies out there at once. You had you know, talks from life science, you know, luminaries if you will, from like Craig Venter, the guy who literally cloned Dolly and, and broke the genetic code to VCs from LA touting how interested and excited they are about San Diego. And what I thought was the most impressive was how many companies were exhibiting and not just like one person coming from it. Whole teams came out first and foremost trust and will sponsor but had their whole team in town out there right at the entrance. They, they also prime. They did the whole weekend, they made the whole weekend family weekend. So not only were, were employees there, but their whole families came, were flown into town to do family weekend and they, they pair that up with Innovation Day which I thought was great to see companies kind of commit to making Innovation Day so important for the whole company. So yeah, a pretty awesome day. Already excited for next year and you know, the pretty legendary day to, to show off San Diego.

Yeah, and shout out to Mike Grin and his team. They did a phenomenal job to put that together. I met with Mike think a month before the Innovation Day and he was, you know, kind of reminiscing and sharing that, you know, you'd be lucky to get 100 people to a SD related event years ago. And this, this year they had over 3,000 attendees from students to investors to just community members and startup founders. So just a hats off to them and their team and for what you guys do for the ecosystem, we're better for it.

Absolutely. Thank you guys. You have a good article kind of highlighting all of everything that happened in one week which you know, connect kind of coined Innovation Week. From top Tech awards to Green Summit to a variety of other events. Anything else you wanted to highlight from that too?

Yeah, I mean Techstars, they did a kickoff. They announced their 12 companies. So we wrote about that also. Top Tech Awards, they honored leaders in the technology community. Measurable CTO was honored and got an award. And so there was a few just different events last week that culminated in celebrating tech leaders in the tech community. And if there's just no better time to get involved in, you know, in tech and startups. And so hopefully this momentum will keep building into next year. Any other events that that, that you know you want to call out. Yeah.

Coming up, we got Women's Venture Summit, September 28th, 29th, which I've been going every year for since I don't know, maybe the beginning. Pretty awesome event that brings together women CEOs and investors, but not just for women. Like, I'm there and so are many others who are super interested in just building a supportive ecosystem for everyone to get a chance. That's, that's some of the biggest problems is people don't get the chance of the opportunity and we want to make sure that that's highlighted. So I'm looking forward to that. We've got what else we have. Man, I feel like this, it's going to be nonstop all the way through the end of the year. San Startup Week obviously is coming end of October, so that'll be good to get people out daily in a different part of the community. What else do you have on your radar for events coming up?

Yeah, I'll be at Women Vision Summit as well. I'm excited for that. I think they have, you know, a lot of great speakers coming into town, not necessarily San Diego, you know, investors from all around the world. There were also another news piece that I forgot to call out, but there was a biotech ipo, Raisy Bio. The guy who, who leads that is Ken Song. It was one of the largest biotech IPOs in the US this year. So congrats to them and their team as far as events. We will put it all in your newsletter and share that, you know, through our socials. But I think we, we covered, you know, what's, what's coming over the next, next month. I think Startup San Diego is probably going to be the biggest event next following Innovation Day. So if you haven't got your tickets, you should definitely check out Women's Venture Summit and San Diego Startup Week.

One more event to highlight in early. Two more events actually early November. It's a little out there, but people are already planning is 0111 conference. So seven CTOs, a group for bringing your technical leaders together in a mastermind group, is putting on their annual CTO conference on November 1st, 2nd, 3rd here in San Diego. We're doing a little interlock preview night, opening night, bringing our CEOs and CTOs together because there's not usually enough time for those groups to actually meet. And then the day after November 2nd, third, fourth, is the Ag Tech Hackathon Year 2, which is powered, you know, by the city of Escondido, the San Diego Farmers Bureau, and San Diego North EDC and we'll have Ag vcs, we will have farmers and growers and we will be giving away cash prizes to companies. The top three companies who go through the 50 hour hackathon together for that. So excited. Four year two. A lot of momentum coming out of that. One other one to shout out. We'll put in the notes. Aquilus, a newer kind of life science focused co working and incubator in Rancho Bernardo is doing their kickoff. Like their opening, their grand opening. They've actually been around, they've been doing events which has been awesome to see but they're doing their official grand opening I believe it's September 26th and so we'll put that in the notes as well. But great to see another giant resource. I just went and toured the space last week. It's massive. They're gonna and it's like co lab space too. So you could just rent a bench for the day for get your own office and everything in between for those looking for both lab and desk space. So great to have that over towards the 15 in North County. So thanks to the Aquilius team there. Without further ado, let's get back to it. It's busy because we're all building. So thanks Fred and you all soon cheer.