This Week in San Diego Tech - June 27, 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 in tech, you know we got it. Hey.

And welcome back to this week in San Diego Tech with your boys, Fred, Neil. Hey Fred. Welcome back from your own vacation. Good to have you back in town.

Hey Neil, thanks so much. Yeah, I had a great time. I was in Hawaii for a few days and now back in paradise and you are actually on the road today. You're in LA, so welcome from LA.

Yeah, thanks. 24 hours in LA and then 24 hours in New York. So I'm, I'm hitting a few, hosting an event, a pitch competition up in la and then I am going to a founder funder summit in New York where some San Diegans are representing. Be out there with Cody Barbo from Trust and Will and Bobby Brandigan from Mercado. So they've been trying to get me out to this annual event for probably three years and finally making it happen. So be out there and be back quick. Should be good.

I love it. I love it. No, it's great. I think there's a few founders who've been moving to New York these days and you know, Trust and Will still, you know, sending a company and they're just continuing to crush it. Mercado, another cool company in town. So yeah, great to see that OG tech founders hang out in other cities.

Anyway. Well, we got a lot to talk about. Let's jump into it actually for summer I would say when times when people are starting to check out on vacation, there's actually a good amount of news going on. So even if you are on the road as well, you know, you can count on us to dive into it and keep you up to date here. Between Fred the journalist who is everywhere on the street tracking all the news and me who's you know, meeting with founders, investing in some founders and just making sure everyone's connected. And so that's what we do here is connect people and share the news. From that regard we'll dive right into the longtime CPG Darling, I would say of San Diego, Dr. Squatch just got acquired again actually. And this is a really, I would say a strong acquisition. Unilever buying them for $2 billion after having a private equity acquisition a few years ago, which this is kind of a typical playbook, you know, for a bootstrapped cpg. I would say that really they got to their first. I think it's first capital invested in. It really was at the. For $200 million evaluation, I think about five years ago. Does that sound right, Fred? And then, yes.

The doctor, Dr. Squatch, I didn't even realize started in San Diego. So you probably know the better backstory than me. But I did see the headline of the news that they got acquired by UN Unilever, which is a conglomerate and they own a lot of, you know, consumer brands. But yeah, what. How did they start? Do you know, like the backstory of, of Dr. Squash in San Diego?

Yeah, actually there's. There it all actually funnels back to a very specific marketing agency in Little Italy called Raindrop. You probably have seen this agency on the north end of Little Italy right there by the crack shack. They have a beautiful mural on their side. And they got really good at creating viral video hits for CPG companies. And so if you remember, there's a very specific video that Dr. Squatch ran with that featured a specific comedian who was in, kind of became the face of that brand. He actually did a bunch of brands all because he got. He did really good viral work with Dr. Squatch. We'll put a link to one of those videos because it's definitely. It was kind of like 2.0 version of the razor blade company, you know, Dollar Shave Club. They kind of went off of that and that was really what helped them take off with this natural soaps and then into a natural deodorant product. I'm a Dr. Squatch Soap and deodorant user myself. And so San Diego company bootstrapped all the way to $200 million exit to a private equity firm and then got a $2 billion exit by Unilever. So, you know, it's a twofer here and very excited to see it. Congrats to the team, to Mike and team here. I don't actually know if the original team still involved with the company. So great story from that because, you know, we see cpg, we have really strong CPG roots here. We always talk about the lack of capital for cpg and now we've can show kind of another success story. And so hopefully this breeds more success. It's great for Raindrop to Jacks and team to be able to say that they, they started them there and took them off there as well. So congrats to Dr. Squatch team and I hope you continue to deliver great deodorant because I enjoy it. Let's talk about global markets a little bit. You know we're actually in a bit of a good IPO run right now. There's been a bunch of solid IPOs over the last two, three months that you can actually now string along and show really good market support there. Why this is important. Well all capital at the big public markets stage flows, finds its way flowing down to the, to the startup phase. And so if we see exits, especially public markets having really strong appetite for venture venture backed startups going public, that's all good for the industry. And so I would say there's two buckets where people are watching. There's the fintech bucket. So you've had Etoro which is kind of like Robin Hood but for the global market, had a great IPO and you actually have some local investors in that. Howard Lindsay I believe from social leverage is a part of that. And you have Circle, another fintech doing had a great IPO as well too. So good for the fintech world, you know, in that regard. And then even Wealthfront, a multi stage venture backed company just filed for IPO for like a 3 or 400 billion dollar ARR company which will be a solid multi billion dollar IPO. And then on the SaaS side or AI however you want to call it now, SaaS AI. We've had a few strong there too with Chime, which is kind of like a, I would say legacy unicorn SaaS company that has had strong showing in the markets as well as Core Weave which is really kind of more of a behind the scenes software in the AI space kind of supporting this new leg of AI. All strong, like really, really strong. Which means that venture capitalists are getting good exits which means they're going to deploy more capital and hopefully raise more funds. So that's good for all of us. What's your take here from seeing it at the global stage There was a.

Great tweet this guy named Shy, he works at Brex. I think he's like one of the leadership team. He said it's Fintech Summer Circle, IPO, eToro Chime and then all these other ones that have been filed. Klarna well front Navan yeah he's a good, good follow on Twitter S AIG we'll link to the tweet in the show notes. But yeah, it's great to see it. You know we did a fintech mixer event last summer I believe in Mission Valley, we had 40 fintech entrepreneurs come together. Maybe we should bring that back, people. You know, I think it's overlooked. There's always different sectors that kind of pump up the numbers in San Diego and I think fintech doesn't get enough love. But we also have, you know, great group of companies in fintech in San Diego that are continuing to move along and raise capital, which is great to see. Maybe we'll get some IPOs in the future, who knows?

Yeah, great point. No, I, I hope we do get some exits here as well. I'm gonna see if Shy will be at this event tomorrow because we, we connected around doing Brex dinners together. Shy kind of leads the local startup community strategy at the, at the national level for Brex. Hey Brex. How about uipo? That'd be awesome too, right? I think Brex is on deck there too. You got ramp doing well and Brex should be right behind. Anyway, anyway, Fintech summer is upon us and I'm, I'm all for it. Let's talk about some other acquisitions within the San Diego area. Quidel, which is a longtime diagnostics company, made an acquisition. 100 million dollar acquisition of Lex Quidel has been an interesting story that, you know, one of the darlings, I would say of San Diego from a life sciences world but just like all the other diagnostics got caught up a bit in the COVID you know, pre post Covid world of, you know, everyone going all in on Covid diagnostics and then all of a sudden Covid diagnostics is not a market anymore. And so Quidella, you've been seeing them bounce back and buying into other areas to make sure that they're well diversified for where you know, the market is in the post covet area. I know you're spending some time life sciences. You have anything here from Quadel?

Yeah, as you mentioned, I was just curious, you know, how much the stock has dropped since 2000s. I remember at the peak they were trading at $282. As of today it's at 28. So their stock prices definitely suffered since then. Now they still have approximately 6,000 employees. They're one still one of the top employers in San Diego. You might have seen their logo, Quel Ortho, some of the Petco park games. But yeah, it's great to see them make some acquisitions. Just trying to stay innovative and stay on top of the industry. They were the leader in COVID testing and other diagnostic products and yeah, we'll continue to follow that company closely if there's Any other news?

Awesome. Yeah, great to see. You're right, I do see their logos. They've been really good at sponsoring our, the local sports teams in that regard. Which is, which is you always appreciate local supporting local in that regard. Let's talk about some also in, also in the life sciences world, we have some news in the diabetes tech space, which is that out of a local research lab, Lily's Research Laboratories, known as Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute in La Jolla, they had a big break specifically on long lasting insulin. So dive into this a little bit, you know, and give a little backstory. Let's, let's do diabetes 101 real quick. First of all, just because there's so much actually rich history within San Diego related to diabetes care and diabetes management, I'll give some personal story here in a second as well. But you know, the whole point of diabetes is not being able to regulate processing blood sugar. Right. And so with that comes a huge host of health issues for bodies. Now some are preconditions, some are just from health, health and wellness lifestyle, you know, as well. So we talk about diabetes type 1 and type 2. Type 1 is more of like a, you know, genetic disorder and type 2 is more of lifestyle that leads to health disorder. And so both are treated eventually through insulin delivery, which enables the body to process and get the sugar out of the bloodstream. And they've had at this lab a big breakthrough in terms of getting insulin delivered that just stays in the body longer so that therefore you don't have to take it so often and even take it, you know, through a pill as opposed to injecting it. So these are all like really cool breakthroughs that are happening both at the academic research and then commercial level here. You want, you have anything more to share on this?

Yeah.

On the front of Eli Lilly, I would say there's been a big announcement earlier this year that they've officially open their Eli Lilly Gateway Labs. There's a few companies I'm familiar that are now moving in. I think they're selecting 10 companies. They're very similar like JLabs where they're supporting local innovation and startups. Robodyne is a local company that's in there, a company called Haya Therapeutics, which raised pretty massive Series A funding earlier this year, just moved into that office and it's right across from Torrey Pines Golf course. You have scripts and UCs, UCSD, Eli Lilly really is at the forefront, as you mentioned, of just a lot of different important issues in Healthcare and diabetes is definitely one of those. And, but they also help support local innovation startup companies by investing in them and providing them opportunities to collaborate with big Pharma.

Yeah, and, and actually San Diego has a deep history of, of being at the forefront of diabetes research. In fact, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes at 21 years old back in the 70s and at the time he was living in LA as a 21 year old and the only place he could go and get his blood sugar checked was at this research lab at Scripps. And so he would drive down three days a week from LA to San Diego. He, he would get his blood taken in the morning, then drive back to la and then that night they'd call him and say your blood sugar was high and be like, oh well I'm really glad I was on the road driving. But that was it, that was the history, that was all we had. Then fast forward many years we went to finger prick where you could you know, draw a piece of blood and you know, over 30 seconds then it would give you back all right, here's your blood sugar. And then I was just at an event, the best ideas eventually but Matt Hayden last week and someone was showing me a just off of sweat you can just put your finger in and kind of like you know those blood oxygen, you know devices that just like they put on you to see pretty much in that short of a period of time, no, no prick of the, of the needle needed and able to tell your blood sugar there. So it's pretty cool to see the history where sensing has come. In San Diego we've got you know, some big startups at this also doing this bio link and obviously Dexcom as well and then the insulin delivery side of tandem and Insulin and other and companion and there's, there's just such a cool density of talent and corporate and startup and research here on diabetes tech. So I, I find that interesting to me, that's why I paid attention to it. So I've invested in that area and we'll continue to highlight, you know, where we see that density of, of talent and advancement here. Let's keep moving on, let's do some fundings. There's been a few fundings that popped up on our radar. One, a later stage Series D by a company named ClearSpeed. This is a company that raised a $60 million Series D round. They have some history, they've been around about 10 years I believe in San Diego started more in the dual use defense tech kind of, I think more cyber related and found its way into the insuretech insurance space. And so I haven't actually kept an eye on them recently. So it was, it was interesting and new to see this funding here. You got any backstory here on them as well?

You know this was new to my radar but I just saw that the CEO posted four hours ago. So this is break news. Clear speed, just race. Yeah, pretty large. I believe it was Series D funding around what was the amount on that? Sorry I missed it.

60. 60 million series D?

60 million which is pretty, pretty substantial. So the CEO, his name is Alex Martin. I was doing some research and found that this actually originally developed for the US Department of Defense. So it's not too surprised that you know this is started in San Diego because San Diego has some of the leading military organizations right here in our backyard. And yeah they are focused on I think it's kind of like a void. It's related to like voice and risk identification technology. And they said they developed this to kind of build trust at scale. They've been around since 20, 2016 so a little bit over two years, 10 years. And yeah this is a company that's new to me and I want to kind of follow them closely now. But this is, this is huge that they were able to raise you know, 60 million Series D. I wonder what their game plan here is. Is it continue to grow or do they want to get acquired by a bigger firm? What, what's your take here Neil on this, on this story?

Yeah, well one just the fact one they've, they've raised in total now 110 million in funding and to see that one that they've actually really found a real dual, dual use path. Like a lot of people talk about dual use right. I'm making that are for the military but they yeah they could be used elsewhere. But really you're relying entirely on your contract with the military. This is, this seems like it's a real actual non military commercial, actual dual use case here. Though I would say largely their funding has come from defense tech related investors. So it, I would see that that's actually still strong for them. They do still have two legs firmly into military and non military commercial. In fact they mentioned in this round that former CIA director and general David Petraeus is join has invested in this, this round as well too as part of a fund. So all that aims to show that I would say they're still firmly in military defense tech and non in commercial. So I would say that's really strong and I hope that that's an inspiration for a lot of other companies here to, you know, diversify your customer base and I hope we can learn from that as well at an upcoming defense tech event that we will be hosting soon. So good news there. Let's stay on the defense tech world as we heard some news of some new funding from Firestorm, a serial defense tech founder Dan Magi and team who haven't not just raised but are building and selling actively their drone. Their. Their drone that is one compartmentalized and can be taken apart and easily built for whatever as well as the manufacturing assembly line itself can be thrown into shipping containers and compartmentalized as well too. So that's their big leverage angle is to be able to quickly deploy a drone with multi use. And I think previously we've reported that they won a hundred million dollar Air Force contract because of that and now they're getting some new funding here. Do you have any other information here as well?

Yeah. So this was pulled by Connect, they have a San Diego funding tracker. Recommend checking that out. It was from an SEC filing, so it was a Series A round. 10 million. Firestorm hasn't officially released a press release so this could be a larger number. But I think this was reported through this SEC that they raised 10 million. Previously they had raised a seed round. I believe it was 12.5 million which was led by Lockheed Martin Ventures and other prominent defense PCs. Another win. This is definitely heating up. Defense tech in San Diego is going to be a sector to watch and Firestorm as well as SHIELD AI are leading the way in our city. It's great to see it.

Yeah, it is great to see for sure. We'll keep you posted on events and gatherings and and kind of the news around all of that. I would say Harpoon Ventures also being here helps in that regard as well too. So you've got customer, you got startups, you have Enterprise, right. You've got General Atomics and Northup building, big drone, Qualcomm building, kind of commercial drone platform and then the talent that exists all in between there. So it seems to me the makings of all the pieces of an ecosystem, that's for sure. I constantly question out loud why aren't more founders moving to San Diego to be part of that. So also something worth continuing to, to track there as well. Non. Let's go non tech related. There is some news I guess they just handed out Michelin stars just this week and another Carlsbad restaurant just won a Michelin star. So many of you have probably heard and Seen Junit Jolie in the Carlsbad Village area. Well, their sister restaurant, which has only been open about a year, Lilo just won its first Michelin star. So success begets success, I would say in that regard. Michelin star restaurant open another restaurant, well crowned as well too. So pretty cool to have them both in Carlswap Village in North county in a very casual atmosphere but a very serious food scene now happening right there on State street, which is actually where we just hosted yesterday a gaming tech gathering with the city of Carlsbad. That street is like, I mean it's just something, something magical about being and I would say manufactured on purpose to build an ecosystem there of good food, good startup space. You've got kiln the startup space there. WB Studios has been running their studio there until recently. Lofty Coffee also all the elements for a physical ecosystem. And that's actually why the last three or four years Startup Week has hosted night one right there. It closed down that street and they're like literally right there. I think we even used Junit Jolie as our VIP lounge two years ago. So anyway, it's cool to see that. Have you gone north for the food scene, Fred?

Yeah, I was just curious how many five star restaurants there are in San Diego. There's currently five Michelin star restaurants. You know, we have two in Carlsbad, we have one across in Carmel Valley, one in Oceanside and one in North Park. So I would just say yeah, north, North County. Carlsbad is really making a name for itself for being known for good food but also companies that are growing there. I, I, I know from, from my experience at least 80% of my meetings are in north county these days. And that spans from, you know, all the way up from Solana beach to Del Mar and then Encinitas and Salon. You know, it's more upwards Carlsbad and I think it is driven by, yeah, it's good food there, good, good schools to raise your family and also a great job. So yeah, kudos to them on get earning that star and hopefully first of many for that group.

Hope so too. Yeah, that group has already spun out. It's a little like mafia, if you will. Actually the original chef who opened with Junit Jolie has gone on to open new rest, two new restaurants, Manna in Encinitas which I think just got a bib Gourmand which is kind of like one tier below and then working on a casual fried chicken place called Chicken Shack with Tony Hawk also in Leucadia. So yeah, look Keep on lookout for good talent obviously around that. Another trivia for you. You mentioned how many star Michelin star. How many 3 star Michelin restaurants are there in all of Southern California, do you know?

I have no idea.

There's one and it's in San Diego so there isn't even a three star in la. The only one in all of Southern California is at the Grand Del Mar and it's Addison. So they're along the 56. Another North county treatment. Come on out everyone for that. Okay, last bit of news here before we jump into some events and it's kind of event related our friends at Deloitte which we we love to do events with just open nominations up for the Fast 500. This is a a self reporting if you will. So companies apply and actually share a lot of company data to show their growth rate. So think of it kind of like the Inc 5000 but a few different metrics that they're tracking for growth rate. Many of our local late stage companies that you've heard of like Cloudbeds and Sochi have been nominated and won in years past. So nominations are open. If you've got a super hot streaking startup or you know, just tech company in general that is growing fast, make sure you throw your nomination in to be a part of the Fast 500 which I think comes out in November but applications are due July time frame so we'll put a link in the show notes here. Also on our radar we've got a bunch of events. As always, check the social coyote for the full listing and pretty much everyone is listing their events on Event Chip these days. I'm hosting next week the Fireside Chat with Andy Ballister, SD Tech founders, founder of GoFundMe and IPOP, which should be fun gathering that same week is the founders hike, the 4th of July edition where you're red, white and blue and the week after is the afternoon Founders Hike. And then we've just gotten the thumbs up to do our Devin Day tonight CTO Talks Healthcare Edition at Google hq. We got CIO of Illumina coming out. We got the head of Google Health. We've got like got some great like widespread health tech CTOs. So you'll see a link to that event coming out end of July, July 29th in one month. Fred, what's on your radar event twice?

Yeah, I've been talking to some folks. I think July is a little bit light on events. But yeah, you mentioned some great ones. Recommend checking those out and then after summer's over Expect August and onwards or meet a ton of events start San Diego. They're not doing Innovation Day this this year but yeah we'll continue to bring the top events to attend for the remaining of the year. Stay tuned. We will continue to curate that list of social Coyote Jonah Peak does a great job of highlighting that. Here's the top 10 events you should attend this week. Yeah just we'll continue to showcase some private events, curated ones, public facing ones. We will continue to bring it One.

Event I'm going to mention real quick. I'm just I'm out of town so I'm not able to be there but the Bermuda Club tomorrow night or Friday night, June 27th is doing pitch night Pitch and Connect at the Bermuda Club. If you haven't been there and checked it out, it is super cool. It's a golf themed co working space with some serious golf simulators and they're doing a a pitch night. I think there are a lot of sports related pitches but I think there's also some tech there as well too. So we'll put a show note a link to that. It just popped up. I forgot to mention it to our friends there, Richard and Kyle who are running the kind of they started their own little investment group within the the Bermuda Club itself. So shout out to those guys of getting an event off and we hope they will will join in the future. As always, listen and subscribe to this, share it with your friends and make sure you're subscribing to friend Fred's Business of San Diego Substack as well as my substack recently renamed the Rising Tide Partners Substack. And we appreciate all of you for building good companies and sharing and connecting with each other. And let's go out there. Fred, thanks for being on.

Always a pleasure Neil.

Cheers. See everyone.

Tacos and tech is on smash for the green guacamole keeper Countins 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 of 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 Jolla shows entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside to Tijuana, South Dakota 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. 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 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?