This Week in San Diego Tech News - June 10, 2024

Hello, hello. Neil Bloom here back at you with this Week in San Diego Tech News. I'm just rolling solo this week, missing my compadre Fred Greer, who recently want to give a big shout out. Completed and graduated with his MBA from USD University of San Diego. Congrats, Fred. And then quickly re signed back up for a new Master's in Real estate, which I'm super excited for you. Congrats, Fred on everything you're doing and picking up a new gig this summer helping out the Senegal Business Journal, writing some more articles about the tech and startup world. So we are very excited to have more content from you because we know you cover it well and congrats on everything you got going. Thanks for your partnership here on this Week in Sanit Tech News and we look forward to doing more with you. But for now we're going to do this episode solo while Fred takes a little bit of time off as he deserves. Let's jump into the show.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos in tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash for the green guacamole Keep accounting, counting beans Contador Cuentan 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 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 St be full of hustler 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.

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 into the show, man. This week we've got highs and lows. There's a lot going on right now in the business community of San Diego. Let's start with just looking back a little bit. The San Diego TechCon, SoCal TechCon SoCal just happened a few weeks ago, man. I'm still kind of recovering from it. Had such a good time. I moderated two panels. We had a panel on current state fintech with a really, really good discussion. It kind of had a bit of a bank tech focus to it just because of three of the four people on the panel were all areas of bank tech. We had someone, not someone. We had some esteemed panelists from Shane Scaff building a mortgage tech platform for banks with big mortgage portfolios. We had Carrie Ransom from Bank Tech Ventures who was talking through all of his LPs or banks and what are they looking for from technology. We had the expert from Citibank who's building all new technology for them talking about what's it like to work at a large bank building plat building products and platforms for treasury and other aspects. And here in the other side of it, the crypto world and how does that play into and why does crypto exist because of the nature of banks today. So it was a really cool discussion. I'm excited for all of the recordings to come out. We had a really awesome representation from Interlock Capital in terms of speakers and moderators and attendees. So it was pretty cool to have our crew there in force. But really hats goes off to the organizing committee and really especially Faisal Mushteq. Amazing job and can't wait for the next one. So let's get working on it already. Let's dive into a few other areas worth talking about here. Let's get the bad news out of the way first. We've got some unfortunate kind of bankruptcies and companies closing. Let's start with the food news. Unfortunately Rubio's has filed for chapter 11 reorganization. This is one of San Diego's beloved and longest running like major chains in the taco and Mexican food restaurant space. Carlsbad Company at one point had 200 locations. Just in the last few weeks shuttered almost 50 of their locations. And while they've got 10 to 15 million in assets, so the article says they've got between supposedly between 100 to 500 million in debt. Ooh. So that is going to be a rough reorganization and I hope this isn't the last we hear of Rubio's, but go grab some, go grab some food from them when you still can since they are still operating about 150 locations on the tech world. Q Health this was, this is a long time diagnostic company that hit a huge sudden rise during COVID They were building a platform of diagnostics and with COVID 19, obviously we're in deep demand for diagnostics, specifically Covid tests. At one point, I believe they were pretty much powering most of the major league sports world with tests for players, referees, everyone around that I know the NBA and a few other sports. They went public on this and at most, I believe worth up to $2.3 billion during their IPO in 2021. But as the big spike goes, so does the downward as well too. And unfortunately, COVID 19 tests are not really in demand and so goes their revenue. And so they have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware, which is most companies are pretty much at this time let go of all workers and all operating facilities, which they had eight, unfortunately. So, yeah, not looking good. Been pretty much shuttered from operations in late May. And our hearts go out to this company and the leadership team and the employees who been building this company for a long time. And we hope you go build the next thing and learn from it, as we know we all do. This isn't the end of diagnostics, that's for sure. There's plenty more to go and do. Take these things you learned and go build it for everything else. We need that in that world. So best of luck to the QHealth team. If you are hiring, please look for QHealth workers. North county team. I believe they're Vista based, if I'm remembering right. So if you're a North county team, go look for some Q Health people because they obviously have rode the wave. Let's go. And that's a great time to bring in some fundings. In fact, a diagnostic company formerly known as Zent, now renamed to Alez Health, they just did a $60 million Series A plus raise. The pluses are all the rage these days, extending out previous rounds and we happen to be close to the Allez team. So Leif Bowman and Frank Westerman, congrats on getting this raise done. I know you've been working on it for a while. It's been a tough raise environment, that's for sure. The ZENT platform, or as it's known now, Elez Health, Carlsbad based company, and it's a platform really focused on new sensor technology, biosensor technology. They've got a deep background in the diabetes space, but this sensor technology really is. Starts kind of in the glucose monitoring space, which has really become a huge area in San Diego with the help of Dexcom and others. They call it the ICGM or digital Continuous Glucose monitoring space. And Elez is building out new technology to further help this. So seeing further execution and further density in the diabetes tech, specifically continuous glucose monitoring space. So hopefully maybe you can find some use from some Q Health former employees there. But congrats Leif and team. Another company more on the seed stage side just raised some money. Holler Hero. This is a industrial B2B SaaS company that does pretty much helps haulers of waste management do kind of the whole back end of software, whether it's managing your fleet, managing routes and everything in between that a waste hauler would have. In San Diego we've got kind of two big ones, Edco, which is kind of a local but big waste hauler and recycler and waste management, the big gorilla in this space nationwide, globally, really. And hauler Hero has, which I believe moved to San Diego during the pandemic from LA if I remember right. And they've raised a $2 million seat around here, which is great to see. So congrats to the team there. Last to round out some news here is on some battery tech. South8 Technologies inked a partnership with Porsche, which is pretty cool to see. South 8 creates a liquefied or gaseous lithium technology that goes into lithium batteries for electric vehicles that enables, well one, it enables the downside of the fires that happen when overheating happens because of the gas. So gas enables kind of a flexibility of range of temperature so it can actually get cooler, it can get hotter without the effects that we see like degradation of performance in the battery world. And inking this partnership with Porsche, who I believe came out with their first electric SUV only a year or two ago. So that's pretty cool to see. They have some pretty great other investors in the company as well, like Shell and Lockheed Martin and I believe they've won a federal grant or two as well. In fact, the co founders, Cyrus Ostamji and I go all the way back to community college days in physics I believe it was together. So we got to get Cyrus on the podcast here to hear the full story. But congrats team to your Porsche partnership. We know it's one of the great successes that we hope will continue happening for you as the road ahead. Let's talk about some events. Always the social coyote powers all of us to know what events are happening. So if you want to know what's happening on any given day of the week, go check out the Social Coyote newsletter. You can see find a link to in the show notes here. Connect Summer Social is coming up. This is an annual event that used to happen in La Jolla now is happening in North County Carlsbad. I don't know if you see a trend here. Things just moving slightly north over time since COVID and I think they're doing it in the flower fields which should be really fun. I remember in the past there's probably been 500, 600, 700 people out there enjoying local craft beer and talking tech, especially early stage tech seeds, Series A, Series B companies all sharing a glass and sharing some notes and network which is always fun to see. So we'll see you all out there at the Connect Summer Social. You can find a link to it in the show notes. We just did our most recent San Diego founders hiker which was really fun. I think 50, 60 people out there, 6:30 in the morning doing Torrey Pines State beach or State preserve which was really fun to do. I didn't jump in the water this time but next month I will. July we'll do it. So the next one is July 12, 6:30 Friday morning. Come on out and join us. And a bunch of other events coming out as well Too, including the June 19 Ag Tech Symposium by Aquilius. Aquilius is a co working and incubator in the Rancho Bernardo area and they're bringing together agtech startups, technologists and investors to showcase kind of the region's area on AgTech which you know, if you've been listening to me for a little bit, you know I'm I'm into as well. So it's great to see the density happen here in with Aqualeus as well too. So that's our show for this week. Hope you enjoy it. Let us know what else you want to hear. You want to hear more events? More fundings? Do you like our post event wrap ups? Do you like seeing what events we're putting on? Let us know, Write us on LinkedIn. Probably the best way to get a hold of me or Fred when we do the show. And you'll see more one on one interviews coming out of technologists, founders and investors over time as well too. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you soon. Cheers.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos? Tacos, you know we got tacos. And tech is on smash Border Green guacamole Keep accountants counting beans Contador Quentan Frijoles Founders trying to 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 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 coast Angels by the ocean watch the sunset La Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded when Sandy 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 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? 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.