This Week in San Diego Tech News - May 17, 2024

Hey everyone, Happy Monday. Neil Bloom, Fred Greer coming at you live. Another this week in Seneca Tech news. Hey Fred, how you doing?

Hey Neil. Doing pretty good. How are you doing?

I'm doing all right. Another whole week where thought I'd run into you at a few events and we were all at different events. It was a busy week last week from our friend Shoring, Near Shoring event, North county event and Santa angel conference. There's a lot going on last week and I missed you at all of them. I moderated a fun conversation on the impact of near Shoring on both sides of the border. Talked both and it was focused on both hardware and software designing and manufacturing both sides of the border with C Comp Carlsbad based company that just opened a Tijuana facility. And then Arcus Nexus, who works on both sides of the border with a ton of San Diego startups. And then the next day we all went down to the Tijuana manufacturing facility. It was a. It was a fun day. Tequila tasting, mariachi band, ribbon cutting. It was a fun gathering, that's for sure.

Yeah, I wish I could have been there. We need AI clones to attend all these different events happening at the same time.

I know. Seriously, I think you were simultaneously. Wednesday you were at the north county gathering by Insane, right?

Yes. And he's, he does a great job of bringing people together. He also puts a list of all the different attendees that were there. I believe there was just a huge diverse list of folks from startup founders to service providers to lawyers, journalists. He does it every two weeks or every every month and it's always a hit.

That's awesome. And then the next day you were at. Oh, and actually I heard from people while at the founders hike Friday, people were talking about that Wednesday event, how it was so packed they couldn't even get in. They were like on the other side of the fence. That's a great sign. North County Tech gatherings. I love hearing that. I mean, obviously wish everyone could get inside defense, but in either case that's a good sign.

It's a great sign. Everyone's booming to north county, that hub. It's like an ecosystem on its own. And then the next day I was actually at the San Diego angel conference hosted by Misty Russ and her team. And I really enjoyed the panel that they had where they had. They featured the previous winners, Aqua Cycle, Limber Prosthetics, Ortix CEO. They had like Kari Health there. These are all previous winners of the, of the last San Diego Andrew conference. And then they brought you know they recognized the winner of this year. It was a sold out event over 100 something angel investors at University of San Diego's campus. It was was a great time.

That's awesome. Yeah, I was watching from afar from Mexico. It was good to see the winner, Blake from Eco Drive represent on stage there. Especially San Diego Co. Which is great. I just caught up with him two founders hikes ago. Sounds like he's doing really well in terms of helping big brands kind of offset their impact sustainably. Right. Is kind of the focus of Eco Drive.

That's correct, yeah. So I'll be doing a full piece on the center interconference and the details, so stay tuned for that. Also kids Care Finder was a winner choice awards awardee which is another local San Diego based startup. So yeah, we'll have the full scoop coming out soon.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

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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. Keep rolling with some news. Another week, another big bio funding with Iambic therapeutics raising a 29 million dollar round. This is not their first round. I think it's a series of rounds for them. Correct?

Correct. Yeah, I think we talked about them on the previous podcast. They had raised a mega round, 100 million at some point and now they're raising another 29 million. If you guys recall, this is a bio AI focused startup that was founded in the last last year I believe, which actually was incubated in the founders corner AI bio meetup which you're involved with Neil. And it's great to see that there is this, you know, a fast growing startup that's raising capital in this tough market.

Yeah, and speaking of tough markets, as much as there's been ups and raises for bio and acquisitions, multibillion dollar acquisitions, there's also some, some shutting down but I think that's consolidation and that just shows how dynamic the biomarker is. Right now we got two different biotech companies and sending shutting down offices. Unfortunately Pac Bio, which is a competitor to Illumina, is shutting down their San Diego Office. It's about 100 plus people that are affected by this. They acquired a local San Diego company named Omnium which actually we were both in Evo Nexus same time frame about 2013, 2014. So it's pretty cool to see them get acquired. They get final acquisition price was about $800 million two to three years ago. And now Pac Bio which is a lot very large like, like aluminum size company and I believe they're actually UK based. Okay, correct me on that one. They are shutting down their San Diego office here. Interesting backstory. And they actually journal it well in this article which harkens back to my Mike Freeman voice of hearing how he would write the history of some of these companies. So back in the day, maybe three years ago, Illumina was on the hunt to buy PacBio Civic Biosciences but it was blocked by the by the Federal Trade Commission ftc. It's like a billion dollar plus acquisition. I believe one was the expert in short chain genomics hardware and one is the expert in long chain genomics hardware. That is the deepest I'm going to get in genomics here. But FTC blocked it and PacBio went and bought Omnium to kind of start consolidation there. And so now unfortunately shutting down that office. But you know this is the genomic wars and this is what happens in making big business here. Fred.

Yeah. Another headline news regarding a shutdown was Takeda. They announced they were shutting down their San Diego research site. Endpoint News reported reported this news I think May 9 and this is pretty huge. Takeda had an office center that was based here in Oregon around 2019 and this was built to complete complement its R D center in Cambridge. About 340 employees currently work at the site and so they might be forced to relocate to other research sites or maybe be laid off. Or encouraged to apply to other positions. So it's sad to see that there's consolidation in the market but it's pretty normal especially given the recent market conditions.

Yeah, it's a bummer. I was at the ribbon cutting so it's and I remember the San Diego EDC Regional EDC doing a big, big talk up of you know, this brand new research facility. I think Japanese based company opening an office in San Diego is a really big deal. So yeah, that's a bummer. But it's a beautiful building and pretty new and I hope it's is a home for another new company because it's gorgeous. It's right there in UT area like a block away from Apples, like six buildings just north of UTC Mall. So someone go grab that and make that your own because it is a beautiful building that deserves to be shown off here. Let's talk, let's end on some some happier news. The UCSD Talent Foundry which you and I have both been hearing about but they're finally coming out. They've built a model that's repeatable. Why don't you break it down for us a little bit here.

Yeah, so the headline news is grant funded UC San Diego Talent Foundry open to community members. And this is a group, this is an organization that's led by Christina Russell who is a longtime member of the San Diego startup community. She used to be involved with the plug with Luis supporting black owned like black black led companies. The other co founder of this organization is called is David Favela and basically this is an incubator program that's supporting entrepreneurs and residents. They were granted I think roughly $900,000 from the U.S. economic Development Administration. This is part of a three year commitment and they're really looking to support diverse founders in the community and connecting them to you know, the resources to start up their companies. So it's a cool initiative and so if you want to learn more about that we'll link that in the show notes.

Yeah, no it's great to see. You know we need as many opportunities as possible to get entrepreneurs to their full potential. And so one especially seeing Christina's kind of repeated efforts to break down theirs and and create access to as many entrepreneurs as possible. I love seeing the next thing that she's working on here. So Christina and David, congrats and we're here to support you. So let us know, reach out here. Those are the ones that hit our desk for recent news just in the last week. Trying to do this often and regular and you know, sometimes there's a ton of news and sometimes there's just so much. But there's a ton of events coming up that's for sure. To see the fullest events of the week, make sure you check our show notes for the link to the Social Coyote. You know, shout out to Jonah Peak here. Hell yeah. For keeping us updated on the events happening this and next week. Aquilius has been putting on a monthly symposium. I've been really impressed with the pace that they're doing this and I recently learned that it's not just thought leadership and startup pitches. They're actually investing in a few of the companies that they meet here as well too. So great to see. The Aquilius Medical Devices Symposium is happening this week, so get out there and go meet some med device companies. I think also we'll also link this. They've got next month they've got their Ag Tech symposium, so they're still looking. I think this week is the last week to submit. If you're an ag tech company, you'd like to submit to their AgTech symposium. Check that out. And future symposiums that like I said, they're doing it monthly. A different, a different theme here. There. What's the next event here, Fred?

Next event is actually going to be techstar San Diego. They're doing an ask me anything and happy hour event that's taking place on Thursday, May 16th. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the application deadline is this month for techstars San Diego and so we're looking to raise capital or to, you know, grow your early shade startup. Really consider applying to techstars that is led by Ryan Cooter and Misty Kane, who are super well connected not only in San Diego's ecosystem, but they work with a lot of investors in LA and other and the rest of broader SoCal.

Yeah, we actually just put out a podcast me interviewing Ryan, getting to know San Diego, powered by San Diego State a bit more especially what is the right kind of company to be applying right now for the 2024 program? It's due. Applications are due May 22 and manage the expectation. What do you what what should both sides expect to happen within three months, which is exactly what happened from September to early December? Get three months to accelerate and steepen the curve of growth as a company. So tune in to our tacos and tech podcast interview with Ryan that is out by the time you are listening to this episode. And last oh, another event here. SDX Hacker Club and the SDX crew have Been active. I love it. They just are coming off a two day hackathon in Tijuana a few weekends ago and now they're back bringing Hacker Club out to to the San Diegans. It is May 16, so this week this it's on an evening six to eight while it's invite only and we know a lot of you are the AI hackers that are listening here in so I'm sure you're in the know on this and it's really to curate a small group to kind of demo and share learnings on, you know, some recent AI learnings. Given the news of today, which is GPT4 made a really massive upgrade to their audio tech within GPT4. I've got to imagine there's me a really interesting conversations this Thursday night talking about one what did GPT4 just wipe out from everyone else who's been building translation apps and all that? And what does the GPT4O as it's being called enable people to do now that you've got this new level up tool? So check that out and make sure you're following SDX on Luma. So they post all their events here and last one a week. Next Monday, May 20, Carl the City of Carlsbad Life in Action community is hosting a Carlsbad biotech gathering. It's hosted at a medical device company in Carlsbad. It's actually a company I interviewed like five years ago so I'm excited to come see where they're at now called in Diagnostics and it's really kind of a focus of north county biotech leaders. They have, they do it about four times, three to four times a year. So if you're in the biotech space in north county, make sure you check that out on May 20th in our show notes. That is our show. Fred, pleasure to jump on here with you and jam and I'm excited to jump in the week. Hopefully I'll see you in person this week. If not, you all know where to find us here on the Tacos Tech pod. You can also find Fred at the Business of San Diego Substack and Tacos andtech or freshbrewedtech.com thank you all.

Always a pleasure, Neil.

You too. Thanks Fred. Cheers.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party. 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 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 so surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo the taco 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 Estee 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 South Dakota tacos with your host, Neil Bloom. Come on.

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You want tech and tacos, Tacos and tech, you know we got it, hey.

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