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

Hello.

Hello. Welcome back to another edition of this week in San Diego Tech news with Neil and Fred. Hey, Fred, how you doing?

Hey, Neil. Happy to be here.

Good to see you as always. Welcome back from Melbourne, Australia. How was your trip?

Thank you very much. It was great. Glad to be back in sunny San Diego, but it was a fun trip.

You're doing an extended MBA research project.

Yeah, I was there for international consulting project which will be concluding the program in May. But yeah, you know, ready to get back to San Diego and start covering some of our biggest stories, specifically on the startup side. So glad to be back.

Good to have you back. I know you hit the scene hard by jumping right into San Diego's, you know, annual golf event, the Farmers Open here. So good to see you back out on the streets and. And not bound by jet lag too much.

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 tacos in techies on smash border green guacamole keep accountants counting beans Contador cuentan 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 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 San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside the Tijuana est be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right 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 techniques on this week in San Diego Tech News. Follow us and subscribe online to your favorite podcast network. Thanks to our partners. Cox Business is a leading provider of technology solutions and we're looking for people like you to grow our local sales business. We reward your hard work with a competitive compensation package, plus commission, healthcare awards and recognition for top performers and opportunities for career advancement. We're on a quest to find someone whose savvy sales skills will help keep our customers smiling. Visit CoxBusinessJobs.com to learn more and be a part of our customer focused team. I'm Neil Bloom, I run Fresh Brew Tech Tech news newsletter and the Tacos and Tech Podcast which includes this podcast here that I'm happy to do with Fred and I'm a co founder in Interlock Capital, a community tech investment community. This is Fred and I'm Fred Greer.

Journalist here in San Diego covering the venture capital and startup scene. Everything from, you know, smaller startups to big companies like Qualcomm and Illumina. Glad to be back to talk about some of the biggest stories in tech.

Yeah, let's, let's excited to dive in and thank you all for your continued listening and sharing of this podcast and each other's Fred's Substack and my newsletter here. We're all about just raising the awareness, elevating San Diego as a global tech hub. So let's dive into it. We've got a wide breadth of news and events including one of San Diego's larger med device companies, resmed participated in a Series C funding for another medical device company called Natrix Health. Notrix Health actually San Francisco based, but ResMed being local to San Diego and ResMed is a deep roots in the sleep device hardware space that really kind of cornered the market on sleep apnea related devices. Invested in Natrix Health Series C which is a significant funding round here and great to see that, you know, one of our public companies is participating in investing in others. It was a $40 million round and that not necessarily that ResMed did the whole funding, but just that they participated amongst other investors. What do you know about ResMed and kind of how they're, they've been investing other startups? Fred?

Yeah, so at a high level, ResMed was founded in the 1980s. They're, they're really a leader in the health tech industry. And Mick Farrell, he has actually been running that company for I think over two decades. Mike Freeman at the Union Tribune has done, you know, many profiles on ResMed on their business growth. So worth checking those out if you're interested in the company. But I think what we're seeing here is a larger company, they're making an investment in a smaller startup. Maybe they will hopefully see an exit down the line with that company and get some returns or they might even acquire this company down the line. And we see that with Qualcomm and Decom who also have kind of venture arms where they invest in startups. So it's great to see A Global company like ResMed invest in startups. I don't think this deal was in San Diego, but it also just shows that they're committed to innovation and supporting the startup ecosystem.

Yeah, yeah. While they don't have a formal like resident ventures publicly out known there, they do have a Venture Pro or an investment program if you will investing like this off of their balance sheet. I know they've spun out some startups including man the ones that skate me. That is a Carlsbad base sleep app that that is based here. We'll have to get that name. But yes, great to see their continued investment locally. Startup Turquoise Health. This is a healthcare software SaaS company. They raised a series B of 30 million. Turquoise Health has been. I've seen their name a lot because what they're really trying to do is bring price transparency and leveling the playing field to allow everyone to get as much information and price transparency for their healthcare options. You gotten to cover them or meet the team at Turquoise?

I would love to do a deeper dive on Turquoise Health. They came on the scene roughly three years ago and the fact that they've been able to continue to raise funding in this category is really interesting. I mean they raised 30 million Series B funding which it is announced on the 23rd of January. So it's coming off of the fresh, fresh year with fresh funding. So it's interesting to kind of follow them. I haven't really dug deep and really have written about them but you know San Diego is known for a number of these digital health care startups. Equip comes to mind when they do something around like eating, eating disorders. And so San Diego has startups in the health tech space and I would think Turquoise Health is one of those that you should have on your radar as they're continuing to grow.

Yeah and great to know. Andreessen Horowitz has done every round of their deal to date I believe, including participating in this as has Box Group. So great to see another A16Z portfolio company here in San Diego. Especially leaning in on the, you know, the divide of health and tech around this. So we'll keep our eye on them and hopefully do a deeper dive when we get the founders here on the podcast at some point back to one of our larger companies here, Qualcomm. Qualcomm powered the NASA Mars helicopter about three years ago that was launched alongside. It was packaged up inside the rover that was sent and it had a three year project life and it just completed it successfully, which is pretty cool. So the team over at Qualcomm sent us over some news through the Jet Propulsion Lab. And yeah, it's pretty cool to see that the helicopter is named Ingenuity. And we will link some of the video that has been pretty cool to see. Do you get it? Have you gotten a chance to see this Qualcomm powered helicopter on Mars?

Yeah, it's super futuristic. You definitely got to check it out. I think they have a strong relationship, Qualcomm, a strong relationship with NASA and for them to pull this off on three year project, it's pretty, pretty incredible just to see. And congrats to the Qualcomm engineering team. I'm sure this was a heavy lift.

Yeah, another drone story that we're going to continue to talk about. Really, this is like a helicopter, it's a drone, but on another planet, which is pretty cool that we're making that kind of impact here locally. Speaking of impact and Qualcomm again, CES just wrapped up a few weeks ago and Cheryl Goodman, actually a former Qualcomm head of communications and former Sony head of communications, went out and did a great wrap up on a lot of the San Diego hardware companies and what their presence was like out there. Like Qualcomm talking about what their presence was like and how their, you know, breaking in a few new, new industries. Same with Sony, but then also some startups that showed really well. In fact, one of the former COO SL presidents of Sony, Michael Fulo, has got a new startup and they were showcased pretty well. The company is called Photon Phi, so it's kind of, it's what they're calling LI Fi and it's kind of using photons as or light for data networking and connectivity. So different than fiber. And they haven't really released a lot. This was kind of their first coming out. So cool to see some new technology with some legacy leaders building new tech here in San Diego. You hear any stories on your end of what came out of ces?

Well, I saw your post and a lot of people from San Diego said they attended. I think Vishelle from Lenovo was there and a few others from San Diego. So it's great to see that our tech community is there live at ces. This is really where a lot of the technologies are displayed but aren't rolled out until the next year or the next two years. So you really get kind of a futuristic look of what's coming next. And I think I was probably, you know, a big banner theme for this year.

Yeah, people talk about rabbit Kind of stealing the show. I don't know if you saw this. It's like a tiny little square camera that you can point to anything, ask it any questions and it audibly reads back to you. It apparently did like thousands if not millions of pre orders the day it launched at ces. Not local, but seemed to be everyone's fan favorite. Everyone's still talking about. You're right. I did post Cheryl's article to LinkedIn and in the comments you're actually seeing a whole bunch of other startups being like I was there, let's all meet up next year. And, and I'd actually already said next year I'm going to ces. I've never been so I'm looking forward to going out. The C comp guys, they're Carlsbad based design electronics manufacturing firm that just, they're bid in Carlsbad. They just relocated their manufacturing from Hong Kong to Tijuana and they have, they had a big display this year and they said they're going to make kind of a bigger San Diego physical kind of hub next year at ces. So let's get ready. Let's, you know, I'm sure tickets are already on sale since it's such a big, big thing. So I'm looking forward to getting ready for next year. Another event that just happened in the last week. I participated on a panel on the at the monthly blockchain meetup that's been going on honestly for like 10 plus years. Paul Pui, the CEO of Edge Wallet, a blockchain technology company, has been hosting it literally 10 years. And so I, I joined the panel on macroeconomic investment trends. We talked way broader than blockchain and crypto though. We asked, we talked a little about that. But also, you know, I was honored to join the panel with which included Vinnie Lingam, who is a serial entrepreneur both in the software and blockchain world. He's currently running a software meeting tech company called Roomy AI. But he also you know, as a GP at Multicoin Cap, a big crypto fund and he was the founder of Civic A Identity Management Crypto as well and joined with us as well was from LA based Science, Priscilla Guerrera, who's actually based in San Diego, which is pretty great to have her here. Science is a venture studio and a fund and they actually incubated and, and started up Dollar Shave Club and Liquid Death Water. So they've got, they've had some, some big hits on the consumer side. So it was really cool to talk macro trends. Especially with all of our different unique backgrounds where we're all focused on this year. So, you know, what we mostly said is like, yes, tepid. It's been a tepid environment. It's continuing to be a tepid environment. Yet you know, we're being pulled in every direction because there's stock markets doing amazing, yet everyone's expecting a recession to happen any moment. And so we're kind of, you can tell in our conversation. You know, we're like, it's like restrained exuberance, right? We, we like want to go do stuff, but we're like, oh, we should be conservative, but we're, we are paid to go make risky bets. So I think you'll get that from the, the talk. You can actually go watch the whole thing. It's posted in the notes here, show notes that you can go and watch and listen to our conversation, which I, I enjoyed being a part of. Some local, local unfortunate news. Layoffs, Tech layoffs are back in the news. I feel like it always happens first, first thing of the year. And San Diego's some larger companies are being called out around this. I think there's a net positive to local layoffs because our talent doesn't leave San Diego. So we'll talk through that. You want to kick us off on the first news about Apple?

Yeah. So front headlines at Union Tribune. I saw an article published around Apple. They're laying off roughly around 157 workers, specifically on the Siri team, and they're moving them to Texas. And their thing in the article says if they don't move to Texas, then there will be forced to be laid off. And so Apple is known to have put stake in San Diego. They, they think they publicly have announced that they want to, you know, hire roughly 5,000 people in San Diego. I think you looked at the numbers, Neil. I would love to. What, what's the number of how much.

I looked up on LinkedIn. I just did a LinkedIn search to see how many Apple employees are there in San Diego. I see 2600 on LinkedIn, you know, so easily over 2000 locally. So they're filling those roles. And while, yes, I think it was like 120 roles have been asked to relocate to Austin just to kind of consolidate their Siri team. I gotta imagine not all 120 will leave. Because who wants to leave San Diego? Honestly and especially, I mean, speaking to a lot of like local tech companies, if, if you're coming from Apple and you're applying to local tech, like it's Great for your resume. So I think it'd be a good sign and hoping we don't lose too many of those for sure because we could definitely use some net big enterprise relevant tech, especially on the hardware and meet software side here. Um, but Austin is another big Apple hub. I easily have had. They've had over 5,000 software jobs there and that was like four or five years ago. So not surprising they're consulting some some of the roles though. Speaking of the Siri team, funny enough happened to have recently met the original founder of Siri, which is was actually a company that Apple acquired I think like seven, eight years ago. So they were way ahead originally in the AI audio AI space. And so he's just bought a place in San Diego and starting to spend more time in San Diego. And eventually the goal he splits his 17 bay and San Diego and he's looking to make eventually over time move more of his time to San Diego. Funny enough, in just the last few weeks he just got acquired again by Airbnb. So he built another. He was actually working in stealth on a AI techno, another AI technology before he even came out of stealth. Airbnb acquired the company and there were San Diego employees on that team as well too. So I'm sure more of that news will come out and we're happy to get Adam involved locally in the scene as well too. So always net news, net good news whenever we see negative as well too. What else? Who else is getting impacted by layoffs right now? Fred?

So the other one that got laid off was nuvasive. You probably heard this this company's name before. In February last year they were required for $3.1 billion by a rival company called Globus Medical. And so they're doing a layoff of a roughly around I think 150 folks. And you know, it's common, you know, company will acquire, acquire another one and then there's sometimes will be layoffs. And so that's kind of one of the other stories here. However, I think, you know, hopefully this talent stays in San Diego and it sucks to see but they are a spine specialist company. They were created product specifically around spinal cords and so interesting company to to look look into. They're still largely, you know, the presence is still in San Diego.

Yeah, you know, luckily it's not a massive layoff. Well, it's like about 157 or 150ish people. Look, we hate for anyone to lose their job, that's for sure. But you know, San Diego, well one like N is growing overall. Like you actually can go see if you're driving the 805, you can see their big campus on the, on the mesa there and they're actually expanding. You can see they're building a lot more buildings. But also San Diego's got is home to a multitude of spine tech companies including ATEC Spine up in Carlsbad, another public med device company and I believe there's one more up in Vista as well too. So you know there is a wide range hopefully of local spots for these people to find bring their talents to another organization. So if you are hiring, look out for people who recently were at these companies because it's important that we make sure that we keep building good tech companies from good tech talent. And last but not least, here is a pretty massive funding from a fintech company called Vervent. They are a fintech company in Sorrento valley that raised 180 million in funding from a private equity firm called Castle Lake lp. And it's a mix. It's not just equity funding, it's a bit of loan origination, credit card funding, equity and debt. And Castle Lake is a pretty massive PE fund, $22 billion in assets. And they're powering Vervant's fintech platform that creates fintech products for unsecured credit card affiliates. So you know, kind of the unbanked and others in that form, non prime consumers is kind of how they're called. So they're creating products from personal loans and other pieces like that to kind of give other options away from the payday lenders, the pawn shops, all these cashing centers. These are a little predatory. And so Vervant is building platforms to offer alternatives to the non prime or unsecured credit card lending space. So great to see another local tech fintech especially getting some large funding to to solve these unique problems. That's it on news. Anything else you want to add on news? Fred, your end?

No, we can jump right into events.

Yeah, lots coming up feels like. And we jumped right back into it. As always, our events are powered by the social coyote you to our friend of the pod, Mr. Jonah Peak the next events coming up. This Tuesday, January 30th is the quarterly Ag X gathering that I'm excited to moderate a fireside chat with fintech agtech company Farm Raise. The CEO Jace Hafner, who moved here not too long ago brought her company here. So I'll be interviewing her to talk about how fintech is funding farms, which is super interesting. We'll also do A informational session of our upcoming March hackathon. So come on out and meet the ag tech scene. Got a lot of people coming and people are bringing their. I know we've got a few drone related ag products come out to demonstrate so should be good time. This week also is the can't believe. Sorry the beginning of February. The first Friday of the month is the San Diego Founders hike. And now the plunge 6:30am itself Torrey Pines lot bathrooms. Meet us at 6:30. We'll jump up into quick round of intro so that you can find someone to talk to on the hike up hike will be back in the parking lot by 7:30. And then a few of us more and more scene of us jump into the ocean right after Fred, you, you coming out? You jumping in the water?

I'll. I'll be there. I can't promise jumping in the water but last, last session we had I think over 50 attendees. So great turnout and I hope you know I think February will be the same.

Yeah. Awesome. And then if I can get you as well, join me on the February 5th and we'll do a welcome to San Diego virtual call where we jump on Roomy AI's platform and give people a quick three minutes to intro themselves and see where we can get them plugged in. You want to take us through a few other these events coming up?

Yeah. Also cool companies which is ran by Connect San Diego. They are during the last call. So this is an opportunity. A program for early brings over 100 VCs from the Bay Area, New York, top top ecosystems to come in and look at the cool companies in San Diego. The application is pretty straightforward and a little bit more details on your product and if you're approved this is something that will say, you know, it will help you get in front of more VCs in San Diego and outside of San Diego. It's worth looking, looking into. I don't know the deadline on that. Do you have that Neil?

Yeah. February 9th just before midnight applications are due and this is really what's cool about it is like the group that is selected and it's a mix of bio and tech software. They make sure they balance it. This is really like the Series A ready. So if you are at that stage where you've got you know, a few hundred K in ARR, maybe even up to a million plus in ARR ready for that Series A or kind of really first institutional check, this is the group that's ready that is kind of selected on purpose for that because pretty much quarterly. They're going to find a way to put you in the room in front of dozens, if not hundreds of VCs who are, you know, just hungry to meet local people ready for their Series A. So definitely give that a shot. I know I've invested in a bunch of cool companies. I've been fortunate enough to be a cool company as at my past startup, I'm wearing Trust and Will shirt right now, who I know was a cool company. So it's a great, great group to be a part of because of the exposure that Connect gets you. Honestly, Mike Kren is one of the best, you know, venture capital connectors. So they go to work for you, which is awesome. So the application is due February 9 and then the unveiling of the this year's school Companies class is April 30th when the first, first event where all of us VCs will get together and meet. I think it's about 30 companies together, so looking forward to that. So if you're an investor, put April 30 on your calendar to come, come out and meet these companies. Then Fred and I are putting on event. I love that we're putting events on together which is pretty fun. We've done, we've done one or two now with Fashionphile, which was cool private tour with, with founder Sarah and now we're putting on doing a little more thought leadership. We're going to do San Diego Venture Capital 2024 Outlook where Fred will moderate a panel of early, mid and late stage VCs talking about what they're feeling for the year, what are they excited for, what are they expecting, what are they looking for? So we're looking to curate the room of venture backed or venture backable CEOs only to make sure that they're hearing the latest and meeting other investors in town as well. What else you can you give us a little tease of anything else you're looking forward to getting out of that event?

Yeah, we're hoping to have, you know, about 30 investors, 30 CEOs and this conversation hopefully will be recorded and giving an outlook on what the VC market will look like for venture backed startups. And so we're going to have some powerhouse speakers from different sectors, mostly tech and it's definitely something that you don't want to miss out on and we hopefully will have more details to share shortly.

Yeah and thank you to the Deloitte team for hosting us super cool venue and great to be working with them on that. So. So Fred, let's looking Forward to seeing you in a few weeks. I'm sure I'll see you in person before then. But that's it for now. Thank you all for tuning in. Keep sharing this with those who just want to get in the know of what's going on. We try to give you a broad spectrum from startup to tech to late stage public and everything in between. And keep telling us what you want to hear so you'll, you'll see us Post this on LinkedIn and Twitter, on our profiles, share in the notes, you know, reply and be like, here, hey, I want to hear stories about Blank. We'd love to. To get that kind of feedback and then make sure you're subscribing to Fred Substack Business of San Diego and the Tacos and Tech podcast so that you know when this podcast is coming out next. Fred, always a pleasure. Thank you.

Always a pleasure. Thank you.

All right, till next time. Cheers.

Cheers.

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 tacos in Texan 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 coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be 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 shores 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. 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 and 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.