This Week in San Diego Tech News - April 29, 2024

Hello, Happy Monday to all you fine folks and hey Fred, how are you doing?

Hey Neil, Happy Monday. It's good to catch up. And how are you doing?

I'm doing good, I'm doing good man. Still recovering from the week. Last week was busy. I know for both of us. I always think we're gonna run into each other more but there's just so many events out there. What were you up to throughout last week?

Yeah, I mean we went to, we. We actually both were at the same event. We didn't get a chance to talk run into each other. But it was naturally San Diego's. They had a pitch slam where they had I think four or five companies. These are consumer focused companies who create products that are sold in like Whole Foods and Costco. And they were pitching in front of a esteemed panelist. I think Jimbo's judge was there and I think over 350 people attended. It was in Liberty Station. It, it was a hit. So that was a pretty cool event. What other events have you, have you attended last week?

Man, it was a busy week. But I love the naturally San Diego community and just that and to think actually it's pretty recent. It's like four years, less than four years that it's even existed and just love seeing local entrepreneurs leading that group. So I love going to that and seeing, seeing that and trying all the products was awesome. But also to see the ecosystem there. Like to see Jim by the way, Jimbo himself was there which was cool. I think it was his wife who was on the judging panel and their buyers were in force looking for companies to meet to showcase in their grocery chains. I love that, that is, that's pure ecosystem building right there. I was at a few other events. San Diego State hosted the Alternative Protein conference or more of a symposium. I gave kind of a talk on kind of a sub thesis of Interlock Capital. We've invested now in Impossible Foods, Blue, Nalu, Mercado and Visor which all have kind of food innovation focus to it. So it's actually interesting to just kind of do a deep dive internally and be like, you know, we do tend to have a bit of a cluster of domain expertise to look at that and then looked at all the other like larger aspects that we have plays like logistics and cargo and that kind of stuff that is related to food innovation. So that was a really interesting event. Alongside co founder of Plantable Foods Tony Martins, he gave an incredible story of moving his company from the Netherlands to San Diego for their first pilot plant and Now a massive plant in West Texas all spinning up alternative protein duckweed product that goes into the supply chain for alternative proteins. So it was a really cool event. We also had our agates gathering and talked throughout the ecosystem about like the pathways of our food. So all the way from when you plant seeds, where's where all the pathways that food goes. And we talked about food recovery, food waste, and obviously making it to our homes as well too. So that was a really cool conversation. And then tapped the week on a gathering AI and bio CEOs at Salk Institute, which was incredible. Like, as soon as you walk onto that property, you're just like, you feel like you're on hallowed grounds. It was started in like the early 50s, I believe. You know, there's been many Nobel laureates like crowned there on top of Jonas Salk himself who founded it after he already pretty much bro polio, I believe. So it was cool to gather that group. We got a tour afterwards and I'm looking forward to doing more with Salk in the community because they've got a lot of entrepreneurial postdocs and, and researchers that, you know, trying to get interested more in the community. So it was a good week, busy week, but on to the next.

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

You want decking tacos tac tacos in tech. You know we got Tacos in tech is on smash for the green guacamole keeper Counting, counting beans Contador quentan frijoles Founders trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping Fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a craft beer and coffee My coating yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing Coronado eating tacos El Gordo the taco stadium in puesto lucha libre and sombrero got a shout out to coast 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 SD 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 SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Come on.

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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.

Let's jump right in. So yeah, I'll kick us off in the first headline story. My former colleague Natalie Rocha who is a business reporter at the San Diego Tribune, she wrote a great piece last week on Q1 funding numbers. And so you know, they pulled the data from Pitchbook which is kind of a real time data set on you know, how many companies got funded. And the article had some really great information. And to call out. San Diego had about 1.57 billion in funding go to mainly health, tech, life science companies in San Diego. And San Diego currently ranks 15 out of 50 global cities for its startup network. And Natalie Rocha had a great piece. She interviewed Mike Crin who runs Connect San Diego which does a, you know, non profit supporting, you know, companies in the innovation scene here. She also chatted with former Prometheus Bioexec who raised I think a really large, really large round. They had the largest round in San Diego.

It's like a $400 million round, right? Yeah, huge.

And then she also chatted with Bobby Franklin who's the president of nc. Is it NCVA or is it National Natural Vision Capital association?

Navc. Yep. The national association of vc. Yep.

And so it was a really great, I recommend checking it out. And that was, that's probably one of the best headline stories I've read in the last week.

Yeah, love seeing the cap there especially because we get, we sometimes get left out of some of these national studies. I know you know Crunchbase and Pittsburgh have been good about including us in those but there's, there's another one out there. I don't, I'll name them on Twitter that whenever they do a top 10 VC ecosystems, whatever reason saying they forget the San Diego data or they pull us into the LA data just like add it up which obviously we need San Diego. We, we know we're a separate ecosystem. We got plenty going on here to be a top 10, if not a top six or five venture capital inflow into, into our companies here. And, and let's jump into some of those raises that we had just in the last week. Serial AI founder Arjun Bonsal who just in the last six months co founded log 10. They announced a 7 million plus raise. I believe it's their seed three seed or seed raise. I think you've covered Arjun in the past. He's, he previously did Exo Kind and before that co founder of Nirvana Systems which was acquired by intel about six years ago, five years ago. What do you, what do you know from the log 10 crew?

Yeah, I mean I kind of got the news from LinkedIn and it basically says log 10. You know our mission is clear. It's to improve the accuracy of LoM powered applications. So this is an AI focused company in San Diego. They raised 7.2 million in seed funding led by 2Q Ventures, Quiet Capital with participation of Essence Venture Capital. And I'm definitely going to be looking forward and looking closely at this company. This is probably the largest AI seed round that I've seen so far and I don't expect this is going to slow down. I think other companies are going to be able to raise because venture capital are looking to back the next big thing in AI. And Locked in IO is the, is the website you can check out. So I'm definitely, I'm going to be following them and congrats to them on that raise. It's a pretty big, pretty big fundraise for seed round AI company.

Yeah, well Arjun, I mean Arjun has got quite a following. I mentioned Nirvana Systems which he co founded with I believe his PhD or postdoc colleague Naveen Rao, which might also sound familiar to you. So they built a AI on a chip software in for Nirvana was acquired by intel for I believe between 300 to $400 million. They then went on to Intel. A whole bunch of that talent and a bunch of people they met at intel have since spun out and done a bunch of companies together, whether it is his next one, Exokind or Naveen's next company which he went on to do. Oh my God, I'm blanking on the name all of a sudden but it just recently got acquired by databricks for over a billion dollars. San Diego and Sanita Space too. Naveen is a angel in log 10 with Arjun as are some pretty legendary investors including Scott and C.N. bannister and a bunch of other names I believe by the way, in their first company Nirvana. I believe Sam Altman was an angel investor in that as well too. So they run with quite the AI crowd. So we definitely should be keeping our eyes on log 10. Arjun and I collaborate on our monthly AI meets bio leader event alongside Nick Edwards. So it's great to see this AI density in terms of tech companies being built here in San Diego. So congrats Arjun and team and jumping.

To our second story, we had Revenue Cat, which is a tech company and they've raised a 12 million Series C. So Revenuecat is new to the scene. One of the co founders actually Lives in Encinitas. Other co founders think is in the Bay Area. And so they are, you know, kind of a Bay Area transplant to San Diego and revenue cat. They do subscription management platforms for creators and helps them monetize via in app purchases. And so they're doing some really interesting stuff. They work with a lot of different developers and creators and they've been fast growing. I think they might be profitable now. One of the top angel investors in the Bay Area. I'm blanking on the name. He was an investor in this company and you know it's just, it's, you know, it's not all life sciences. We also have like some cool tech companies that are raising. So I think this is a good sign. What do you know about them, Neil?

Yeah, I mean they definitely got a lot of press this week. More just about the way that they raised. I think, you know, they're one of the popular Twitter companies if you will or at least the where the company is known because of the Twitter presence of the founders in that regard. And I believe they put out, put out some kind of tweets around you know, in the past having trouble raising or you know, sign the times and then here they're all like oh well, guess we didn't have an issue this time. We raised and we're happy with who, who joined us. So you know there's, you can go find, we can link the Twitter conversation going on here to see, you know Jason Lemkin from Saster involved is a great sign. Jason is one of the preeminent SaaS investors but really serial entrepreneurs and runs a great blog called sastr S A A S T R and a great conference. I think it's multiple times a year now that he puts out content. I'm reading his blog daily these days. He just puts out such great content. So you know, that's a, that's a good sign there and that he and Saster fund invested in this company here. So love to get them involved more in the community. It's not just companies raising. Happy to see a local fund raising as well too. Behind Genius Ventures, Paige Dougherty's fund officially announced the closing of fund two. Super exciting. You want to break the news on this one here?

Yeah. So Fortune wrote the great piece. They broke the news. But Paige who is the managing partner. Founding managing partner, sorry. Oh, she's the founding managing partner at behind Genius Ventures which is kind of a new pre Seed seed venture capital firm. She's. They've been around for about a few years and so she raised 8.9 million for its second fund. This is kind of history breaking as she's like the youngest solo general partner in the US as according to Fortune. And so we kind of did a deep dive on our publication on, you know, how did she start it, you know, who is Paige and how did she, you know, accomplish this big feat? And really comes down to a few different things. One of them was leveraging the power of social media. Paige built a very strong following among Silicon Valley VCs and founders by creating content that was easily digestible around, you know, making venture capital more transparent. She leveraged her experience interning and working at other prominent venture capital firms and distilling information. What she learned and you know, encouraging others to get into the space and kind of built a brand for herself. And she was able to, you know, get Some really top LPs from the Bay Area to back her in this fund. I believe the co founder of Dropbox is one of her LPs among others. And so the whole piece will be linked. Recommend checking it out. It's a really cool story. She's only 25 years old and she's just getting started in her career.

It's so cool to see. I'm so proud of her. I remember when she was still an undergrad at SDSU doing intern, I think she was interning at TVC Capital and then went on to maybe be a full time analyst there while also working full time at a tech company in the Bay as a software developer too. She's just hungry and you know, does the work and so it's great to see her doing well and funding companies. And Paige, my only note to you is like let's do some deals together. So excited to see it have more funds here locally and let's do more deals together and in San Diego as well too. So congrats Paige. Let's dive into some events that are coming up. As always, we're powered by the Social Coyote which is the weekly newsletter on tech events. You can check, grab the link and get the newsletter straight to your inbox. Coming up on Tuesday, we Fred and I have got our private FinTech founders lunch that we've got a really good group of fintech, VCs, investors and startup founders both early and later stage Fintech too. So really, really grateful Fred to do that with you. I'm excited for that. And then both of I will be going right over to the Cool Companies event downtown which I think like 120 VCs are flying in for on top of however many of us locally as well to meet the latest 30 new cool companies Series A ready companies which should be, should be great. What are you looking forward to from Cool Companies event?

Fred I'm really looking forward to just meeting other folks that are looking to do more business in San Diego. It's clear that there's momentum building here and I think the next thing is just how do we get people in the room and just, you know, connect the dots. Companies are always looking to raise capital. VCs are always looking for quality companies and so it's just great to partner with you and bring together high quality people and connect those dots. So I'm really looking forward to both the FinTech lunch, the Connect San Diego VC event and then we also have TechCon coming up. TechCon Social. Maybe you can talk a little bit more about that.

Neil yeah, Techcon SoCal is coming late May. It is May 24, just before Memorial Day weekend. I got kind of pulled into the organizing committee there and so impressed with how many speakers are coming out for this. We've got and they're now officially live and locked on the website. You've got locally, you've got CEO of Seismic, Doug Winters, you got CEO of Sochi, a fifth Corey CEO of Cloud Beds, Adam Harris, I think the CTO of Drata, Daniel Marashlin. Like you got pretty much almost every tech unicorn CEO or CTO represented at this and then on top of that like even bigger names from the Bay Area coming down in terms of tech C level execs. So we're kind of, what I'm seeing is feels very much like a SF San Francisco Meet San Diego kind of community and an audience group that's coming both from the speakers and, and the audience we've got I think selling over 30 different VCs coming to this who are not from local as well. So that means we need the startup community to show up and show them that there are a bunch of companies worth checking out here since they'll be coming and speaking on a variety of things from the future of transportation, future of fintech, future of AI. So we'll be some great conversations, great people. I think there's a pitch competition as well of companies from all over. So it's exciting. It's about a month out and I've got a discount code I can share with those who are interested. So find me and I can share that with you a bunch of other normal events that are happening throughout like the tech coffee events and our founders hike all that you can always find in the Social Coyote. But, you know, it's getting into summer, so sometimes people disappear a little bit for the summer. So let's get, let's pack it in in May and make sure we're connecting each other over networks and notes and appreciate it.

Yeah. We also share all this on our socials on LinkedIn and Twitter. I recommend, you know, giving us a follow there. So social, Social Coyote does a great job of, you know, curating these events and there's just no reason to not be involved in, in the ecosystem. There's something for everyone. Tech, science, consumer. San Diego also has a booming sports town. And so I kind of, kind of pick what you, what you're interested in looking to build connections with and let us know what other stories you want us to hear us talk about. We would love to get feedback from our listeners.

Yeah, really do I really. We. And I would say, you know, kind of this growing collective of new ecosystem builders. You, me, Jonah, the SDX crew, like the Silicon Sands crew. It's really cool to see people stepping up and organizing and leading in the community. As always, you can follow Fred at the Business Business of San Diego Substack. So go find him on Substack and give him a follow. And I will say pay for his content because that's how we get the best quality content is pay our best people. And you can always, like you're hearing this episode, the Tacos and Tech podcast. You can find it@freshproductech.com and, you know, reply to any of our emails. And we're super responsive. We all want to hear what you want to hear more of and how we can best build this ecosystem. So thanks, Fred, to you. Thanks all for listening. Have a good week. We'll talk to you soon.

Always a pleasure, Neil.

Likewise.

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

You want decking, tacos, tacos, tacos. And tech is on smash for the green guacamole Molly 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 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 Gotta shout out to ghost 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 St. 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. 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 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.