This Week in San Diego Tech – Sep 19, 2025

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 tech and tacos, tacos and tech, you know we got it. Hey.

Foreign. Hey everyone, it is Neil and Fred back at it with you. It's been a bit. We miss y'.

All.

But we are here with this week in San Diego tech news. Hey, friend, how you doing?

Hey, Neil, it's good to see you. It's glad to be back and excited to be talking about what's happening in San Diego. Startups and tech.

And wow. A lot. We are. It's post labor, which means everyone's back to work. Honestly, I didn't feel like anyone took time off in the summer until like a week or two in August. There was suddenly, you could tell it was like, oh, everyone's out these two weeks. And you know, I did the same except I was working while in the Hamptons in New York that was really there just to work. And you could tell also people were trying to get in their last few weeks before summer ends, but people are back at it. You and I have been back at doing some events already, not just in San Diego, which we will allude to and talk to here. We're going to do more of like some industry roundups today. We're going to talk about what we're seeing from industry clusters and so why don't you kick us off on the defense tech side?

Yeah. So I would say there's two big trends I'm seeing in the venture capital space. It's defense tech is on fire. It's driven by investments in the Bay Area as well as El Segundo, which we were down there earlier this week for a mixer event as well. As you know, there's been a lot of movement and just growth in the defense tech specs. Defense tech space with Firestorm Labs, they just actually had a grand opening earlier this week. They announced that they expanded through a 60, 000 square foot new facility and that was actually in Mir Mesa. So shout out to Dan, Maggie. They opened the facility just off the hills or their new financing. They've got investments from Lockheed Martin as well as some tier one institutional VCs in the bay Area. Congrats to them. You know, so they're making a name for themselves. And I would say they're neck and neck with SHIELD AI, which is another unicorn defense tech company in San Diego. But Neil, happy to talk more about what we've been working on, which is trying to build community and foster the end users as well as the founders and also the capital allocators in defense tech. What are you seeing on the ground level? I know you've been pretty busy trying to build that community.

Yeah, for me it's the connective tissue. What is the reason for all of us to be together and help each other? That is the community part that, that we work in on, day in, day out. And it's been very apparent that, you know, there's the, there's two, two aspects. There's the bubbly like, oh, everyone's pouring money into this, so we should get involved part.

Right.

That, that's the chasing and then there's the man. These are all the pieces of that are missing in the ecosystem that we need to help fill so that we can build great companies here.

Right.

Like Shili 10 years ago, started really kind of from nothing and has built their brand and built these companies with really without a hardware and defense tech community to build in within San Diego. And so you can tell, you know, they opened offices in D.C. and Texas, which is where they bought companies or had to be for their customer, you know, and, but still maintained a big headquarters in San Diego around that. And so kudos to them kind of being out in front around and, and actually when you think about who else was kind of at the frontier there, it was actually the mag with a drone defense company called Citadel.

Right.

At the same time we have two drone defense companies in San Diego, another one called SkySafe that I would say were like the pioneers in like new tech, new defense tech in San Diego. Well, now that we're in 2.0, which is, you know, money's pouring in, you also see people pouring in who may have lost their NIH funding and are now going after DoD funding.

Right.

And so people are pivoting from, oh, we're, you know, we were spending all of our time building ecosystem for life sciences and health tech and now we're doing it for hardware and defense tech. So that's one thing I'm noticing. The founders themselves though in San Diego are realizing they're at a big advantage because they're right there down the street from the end user customer. These are people who are really writing real checks saying, I want to buy your stuff, I need it to solve my problem. Yesterday. So that's a great thing, right, is to have the tech companies, the founders, right there with the customer. And so I believe we will see more and more companies not just put a BD person here, which they always have, but eventually relocate, because the founders themselves are the first salespeople, they are the first BD people, and they are the insanely curious people to want to know what are the problems worth solving. So we're already seeing people relocate here. We already see people who are coming in here more and more, right? They used to come for a conference. Now they're coming in once a quarter now, once a month. And so people are physically here now. And now they're finally looking at, all right, what does the whole ecosystem need? Like, what's missing? And one could be, man, there's no skiff around. Like, there's no place to have a secure conversation. So that's one, like, tangible tool that I say is missing. The other is, you know, like, I need to pump out a quick prototype. I need machine shop or technicians who can go and put this thing on that other thing, you know, where can I do that? And so that's what we're starting to hear on the ground is, like, the need for these different pieces. And therefore we're convening people so we can listen to that and. And then go help pull in what's missing and what can we fill in those gaps. So we now have got, you know, a monthly coffee gathering that turns into a full build day, meaning come for the coffee stay to work alongside each other every month. September 26th at Downtown Works, Mission Valley Campus, which has been awesome to see. I mean, first event, we had like 75, 80 people there. It was so loud, I couldn't hear myself think because people were just, like, talking for hours. It was amazing. I loved it. And then the whole crew mobilized and went up to El Segundo for Deep Tech Week. And we had a huge San Diego showing. All come together in la, which is also great because in la, we've got a huge defense tech cluster in El Segundo and a lot of capital partners up there, VCs, who are funding it. And so we're making those linkages and showing them our talent pool in San Diego and the company's worth funding. So all that's been super interesting. I was at the Firestorm Open House Monday. It was awesome. They put on not just a great show, but really show the necessity and the imperative to meet the need. They talk about how Dan had a great set of numbers he said Ukraine will print 3 million drones this year. China will print 4 million drones this year. United States will print 30,000 drones this year. Like we were so behind. And our future potential enemy is China, which is across the Pacific, which San Diego is one of the closest to, you know, actually be at the front lines for or at least be supplying people to. And what they have learned at Firestorm is not. It's not just drones. It's literally every part that the military could ever need needs to actually be in Asia, where the front lines will be, not just join getting on a ship and weeks later it shows up or getting on even on an airplane. And so they're realizing there is this even bigger need, not just drones. It's like literally every piece of hardware in the entire supply chain needs to be able to be printed and put on minutes later. So excited to see all that. Excited that There's a few 3D printing related defense tech companies here. We got Crater here, who's been embedded with Marines for a few years. So I envision a lot more of that 3D printing, manufacturing for military needs. And excited to just keep diving deeper into that. So keep an eye out for us as we keep kind of reporting this subcluster. You know, we'll have plenty more to say on that coming up. Anything else you want to close, close, Put a bow on that. Or you want to move to biotech?

Let's get into biotech life sciences. You know, obviously it's been a challenging environment for that, that space, given that NIH funding has kind of been pulled by new administration. But it's great to see a silver lining in that space. In the last few weeks, we've seen an uptick, significant uptick in life science funding. In San Diego. There was two major financings, Tree Life Biosciences, which is actually based in Boston. But they do have a growing presence in San Diego. They just emerged from Stealth, raised 200 million from ARC Venture Partners, which is an active biotech venture capital firm.

Art.

Art, Natar Therapeutics. They also emerge from stealth. They're focused on R RNA therapies. They raised about a 52 million Series A. And you know, I would speak just in general that we weren't seeing as much of these funding funding rounds back to back. You probably see like once one at one a month. But now we're starting to see, you know, at least one or two a week now, which is just. It shows that investors are now, you know, deploying capital that's that was historically on the sideline the last six months there's a few VCS I was talking to who said they weren't personally making any net new investments until 2026. Just largely given that there was no clear path to, you know, additional fundings, whether it's NIH fundings or just capital needed to get drugs into the clinic. We're also just seeing, you know, some activity in the early stage. We had Debute Biotech which is based in Sorrento valley. They raise a 20 million in new financing and announced that they're expanding into Asia. You also had some acquisitions between I think gitree Bio. I think you have some details on that. But yeah, we're starting to see some activity in the biotech space which is, which is great to see.

Yeah, you know I was at, I just got, I just joined the San Diego State Mission Valley Innovation District Advisory Board and we, they had a really good overview of like the local economy from Nakia Clark from the San Diego Regional edc and she said the same about you know, VC funding. I looked at a few things and mentioned this and we've talked about on this podcast, we're coming out of one of the biggest M and A environments for biotech like in a long time.

Right.

Like over the last 24 months San Diego experienced close to 30 billion in exits on, on some biotech companies which is massive. Like I think you said we were the number one M&A area of, of you know, the top three if not all biotech hubs. And so I look at that in stride and be like, look like we just had some huge exits on the far end. It's just a seasonality that, you know, maybe our companies were on the late stage and had exits and the funding will come when it comes kind of thing.

Right.

Like it's, it's pouring into other areas, it's pouring into defense tech in the meantime. And those founders who had exits now or in the last year will start next companies and they will get funded because they're on company 2, 3, 4 or 5 and they had billion dollar plus exits. So I would say yes, rough environment. But I think that our founders are resilient. This is a ten year game, not a six month game. And I think the fruits of the labor of those exits are coming. Those are all good things that are coming in that regard we're seeing. So you mentioned we just had our AI Buy Bio gathering which is like this small group of kind of ctos but who are either deep bio or deep AI or both.

Right.

And we kind of do this demo day if you will once a month. And we had Nick Edwards from Potato who's a co organizer of the group with me who started the company because of this group he saw, you know, he sat there for two years and watched and learned what are the needs of bio and built an AI for bio which is awesome. So he gave an amazing demo and our next one coming up in October is Pilgrim Jackson from Yateri Bio who man I remember when he presented two years ago when he was just starting and this expert in proteomics who now at this point I think he just acquired another company, you know, maybe an aqua hire. I don't know the full details and I would really rather let Pilgrim tell his full story. But you know, just to see that an early stage startup is already finding momentum here in a new sub vertical proteomics which is like kind of this emerging sub area within life sciences for you know, drug discovery and a few other areas meets AI. And so you know I'll have more to report after he he does a demo day with us in mid October. There's but within the room I think there were four proteomics experts, you know, who are varying areas of AI meets proteomics. So you know there's a lot of areas to uncover under life sciences. What we used to just say drug discovery, there could be three or four different subclusters under that and what ways are they using AI for that AI with quote, quote words in that. So lots going on. Don't sleep on San Diego's biotech community and don't just go off of one big, you know, macroeconomic trend line. Founders love a good resilient change, you know, like oh, you're going to change the game on me. Well great. I would love to run up another path and run through another wall. So excited.

These companies are also looking for talented smart innovators, scientists, builders. And so as we're talking about some of these companies who are getting funding and finding success in this challenging environment, reach out to the founders, reach out to the leadership team, find a way to get involved whether it's going to events or working at some of these companies to help them build the future. I think that's what we needed. What's needed in San Diego we can still inspiration from El Segundo and la. I think it was a density of talent and companies and people willing to help each other out there and I think we do have that in the life sciences ecosystem but we'd love to see that more in tech and also not only just life science and therapeutics and pro genomics, you know, there's also stuff happening in a medical device. There's a company called Luna Diabetes, I think we believe you're an investor in that nail. They raised a 23 million Series A and you know, they're really doing some pretty cool stuff around, I think insulin delivery. You know, obviously we have a big company like Dexcom here who kind of set the roots here, but we also have some upcoming startups who are continuing to find success. So yeah, we'd love to call out that there's ways to be a part of the growth here in the innovation economy in San Diego.

Yeah. And what I would say I'm going to tell the Luna story in a second. But it's a story of density.

Right.

And so looking for your tribe that's very specific to your area of expertise is super important for us as a community.

Right.

I think there's a lot of events where you can go and just meet anyone in tech, meanwhile in biotech. But we have got these subclusters going on that are dense and the only way to break in is to show that you've got dense subject matter expertise alongside them.

Right.

And so Dexcom, we actually told the founding story on our podcast here five years ago. The original in VC John brought, he found them, they're a bunch of postdocs in I think University of Wisconsin Madison. He brought them to San Diego, funded them and it was became the eventually like the dominant glucose meter that could detect, you know, your blood sugar. Just now, I think a 60, $70 billion company by market cap maybe, you know, and they are breaking into consumer side. So what's really cool and really interesting in the parts of biotech, some of these subclusters, is how they're going and finding new pathways, new revenue streams. And so Dexcom has obviously started as a, you know, kind of a wearable. Well, not started where they've hit their big stride. On their G7 is a wearable patch that tells you, you know, your blood sugar and then talks to your phone both to track the data and then talks to your insulin pump, which may be a Tandem diabetes pump, also San Diego base or an Insulin another pump or a Beta Bionics another pump. Uh, and all of those have roots in San Diego, whether the Tandem based here and started here. Beta Bionics CEO Sean Saint is serial diabetes tech actually as was chief lead engineer at Tandem Anodexcom and then Companion Medical, which he sold to Medtronic and Then co founded Luna Diabetes. So yeah, what I'm saying is like look for deep dense pockets of domain expertise and you will find multiple companies within that space and multiple founders building who just continue to build in that space. And the diabetes tech is a great story around that and which is why Interlock Capital funded it three or four years ago. Initially during their pre season when Luna Diabetes originally plan was and still is today, it's this hold you overnight set of insulin. So for majority of type 1 diabetics they just deliver insulin themselves through a pen or just through a shot and then they go to bed and they will get woken up by their Dexcom G7 saying you're high or you're low and you gotta do something about it and super disruptive to sleep. And so Luna said we're gonna help at least just keep you maintaining your blood sugar. And so Interlock did their pre seed and their seed and they just closed a large series A which kind of converted all those rounds together. So we're very, very happy to be a part of that. But even more, I'm just proud to see three serial diabetes tech founders who I think two of three, if not all three of three are also type 1 diabetics themselves just continuing to build in the diabetes tech space. So another great San Diego Sorrento Valley story here and that I think you will finally hear more about because they've been very quietly building but now obviously they need to hire people so they'll be, they'll be louder because of that. But yeah, that's just one of many of these subcluster stories that we love to continue to report on. Maybe we need to find other ways to write it. Maybe you need to write like a long piece on the history of diabetes tech in San Diego.

Right?

Like go trace those roots or something or, or we do an event that's just diabetes tech founders and go pull in all the pieces of that for a dinner. You know, probably not or those are ands. We need to do all of those together because when you see the sub clustering you know there's just going to be more around that.

Couldn't, couldn't agree more. Yeah, there was a few other big tech and all startup headlines I can share. There was an article I put out earlier this week on just like recapping kind of mid September what's been going on and the technology and also real estate space. There was a few headlines that I caught my eye. ClickUp announced that they just surpassed 200 million in annual revenues and I believe Axels and STBJ did a piece on them about that they were potentially eyeing an ipo. So, Neil, your bet that you made out about how many IPOs there would be this year in the tech space, you know, this could be the first one.

Let's go. Let's go, Zeb. I want to go ring the bell with Zeb. Uh, I'm. I'm super stoked for them. Um, I haven't. That bet you mentioned was something that me and Corski founder Luke Safinos bet on Twitter, which I am still currently locked out of my Twitter account, so can't really engage on that conversation. I got hacked and someone took over my account and started selling crypto. So I hope some of you bought some of my crypto, apparently that I've been shelling on my hacked Twitter account. But we made an over under bet on how many IPOs there'll be this year, and I have not checked that number, but I did go buy the service Titan share that I said I would give him if I lost. So I would love to lose because that means we've got a bunch of exits happening. And while we had Carl's Med over the summer, which was a great med device IPO that happened in San Diego, we haven't had too many others yet. There have been some great, you know, Silicon Valley IPOs that have happened that have overpriced and have come out swinging hot, which is awesome. And so I expect we will have some in that game soon. And it would be awesome for ClickUp to do it because we know Zeb will do it in style and he will do it loud. And so congrats to Zeb and team there on continuing to build a good product that is obviously a lot of customers needs.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Some other big tech news. Qualcomm celebrated its 40th anniversary at SN Snapdragon. I believe that the Mayor Todd Glory was there and a lot of people in the community to celebrate all that Qualcomm has done, support innovation. Seismic also hosted a 10th anniversary in San Diego. Doug Winter, you know, really claimed San Diego for Seismic roots. I know it's a company that started out of his garage or his apartment, I believe somewhere in Del Mar. So it's pretty cool story there. And then techstars STSU announced its latest cohort of companies. I believe they have seven companies for 20, 25 cohort. No, no, you're very involved in Techstars. Neil and Andy Ballister and others helping support the Next generation of companies. Which is great to see.

Yeah, a lot of good tech news, man. I'm literally looking where I'm parked right now. I'm looking at where Seismic's office. I used to be able to see it until they built the one Paseo Towers which now blocked that view. That was like office number three for them by the way. They, I think Del Mar, then an apartment in Leucadia and then Solana beach and then they've been in two or three in Del Mar. So. And we've hosted some events at the space over time. Love to see that company continue to do well. I was, I would love for them to feel, you know, in the race to beat click up to. To ring the bell. I think they're much further along revenue wise. They might be like 4 or 500 million ARR revenue now. So let's go Doug get it. Let's. Doug's.

Doug's.

Doug's a great. Not just founder CEO but also mentor to other CEOs here in town too. Which is awesome to see, man. A lot going on and a lot will be celebrated soon. Cause Santa's Startup Week is kicking into gear October 6th through 10th. And so and what's cool this year they've added a kind of community. They call it Startup Week X. A community angle where if you are hosting an event, you can host it during the week and list it on the calendar kind of LA Tech Week style. So I am hosting. Me and Hussein are joining forces to do Hussein's mixer, his monthly north county mixer. We're doing it together to kick off the week on Monday the 6th. So come do lunch with us and then let's all go show up for day one together at Santa Startup Week. And then just my involvement. I'm also doing a co founder matching event on Wednesday at sdsu. Kind of teach people one. Here's how to size up yourself and look at your superpowers and then go find complimentary founders alongside that. So that should be really fun. And then Friday I'm closing the week strong with my founders hike. That will also be a DJ dance party at the end. So we are going to hike 6:30 and clean the beach. We've got a new startup. It's got a coffee truck startup that'll be there at the end of the hike. And then Church of Music, which is a Alina Gordon, the DJ who does a Sunday EDM session at Gliderport. She is going to be spinning at the end of our hike. And so we'll have a sunrise Session at the end of our hike to close the week with a, you know, a glider port beach cliff dance party. So come join that if that's your thing because I think it'll be a really fun way to, to end the week outside.

Looking forward to Startup San Diego week this, this year it's going to be fresh, new, different and really it's a way to celebrate all that's happening in San Diego startups. Next Wednesday I'm actually doing a live LinkedIn conversation with Cheryl Goodman from Startup San Diego as well as Sir Hop from New Fund Venture Group. We're talking about AI tech, real, real value versus hype and you know, how to find funding and jobs in this today's market. So yeah, stay tuned for that and yeah, we'll hope to see you at Dark Week coming up very soon and you know, get your tickets, you haven't got them yet. And find ways to volunteer or start your own event.

Yeah, so many events out there. Make sure you're checking Jonah's the social Coyote which is linked in the show notes. Most events that these days have found their way to event ship which is kind of like our community. It's like the Luma of San Diego, if you will. It's a good way to say it. Or the Eventbrite of San Diego. Lots of events going on. We always talk about October being one of the busiest months because people are getting stuff in before the holidays. I anticipate that to be another year of crazy record events. And so you'll see me and Fred out there doing our own events, showing up at other stuff. So thanks everyone for tuning in, thanks for sharing this with others. Send us feedback as always and subscribe into Fred Substack, the business of San Diego linked in the show notes and rising type partners substack which is you'll continue to see me using that brand. I'm consolidating all my brands. Fresh brewed, kind of gone, it's all rising type partners. So thank you all for tuning in. Fred, thanks for being on here as always.

Always a pleasure, Neil. See you out there in the community.

See everyone. Cheers.

Tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keep accountants 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 standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean Watch the sunset La Hoya shows entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside to Tijuana Sd 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 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 started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

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