This Week in San Diego Tech - March 20, 2025

Hey Fred, how you doing? Hey Neil.

Doing pretty good. How are you doing?

I'm doing all right. I'm fresh back from a trip from New York which was super fun. Started as a personal trip and I decided to add on a few days to do some business out there to share some deal flow with some other investors and meet up with some of our analog portfolio companies. It was a busy and fun trip, but it's good to be back in San Diego. That's cold. How are you? What's going on on your world?

Things are busy. It's good, you know, glad to be back talking about the biggest news and Startup San Diego Tech. We have a lot of funding news picking up and some M and A news. So excited to dive into that. But overall things are good. Sunny in San Diego, going to coffee shops and continue to meet folks in the community.

Yeah, same here. I, I set up a builder founder builder day at Anseer Innovation over in the convoy and area. About 10 of us who were just like sharing what we're working on, seeing helping each other. The question immediately was like what generative I tools are you using? You know and all right, let's pop, let's create a something real quick. Was fun. So what's cool about this space, this that we're in? Answer is this building was the original GoFundMe office. So shout out to Andy and Brad. I'm. I'm sure they remember the old digs like 15 years ago or so and it's pretty cool to know that this is where it all started.

I was going to say that's awesome man. GoFundMe is obviously one of the biggest success stories and it's kind of San Diego startup ecosystem and it's cool that that space is now being used for.

Yeah. So the owner of it is Ping Wang who's a board member of Startup San Diego and is very much interested in making a physical hub in this area. He actually did it pre Covid. He had his own a co working space called Answer also I used to sponsor the all the different dev meetups that were happening there and then he sold it just before COVID and spent Covid in Taiwan and then is recently back and is back buying buildings and turning it into tech hubs. So it's a natural fit for you know, doing stuff like that. One million cups is going to be housed here. In two weeks they're going to be I think or three weeks they're going to kick off one million cups again which hasn't been around in A while. So that's be all super cool. I think we got to address the big news of San Diego region which has nothing to do with Tech except has everything to do with Tech, which is our sports teams. All of our teams made it into the bracket this the original bracket this year which is pretty amazing. So UCSD men's and women's basketball and SDSU men's and women's basketball. At least at the beginning of this week we're all in on the bracket which is pretty awesome. UCSD this is their first year D1 eligible. They had to wait 5 years for like during like a probationary period from when they said D1 ready to being eligible to field a team. And in year one won their conference, won the conference tournament and then made it into the men's bracket and the women's as well too. So for you and me, UCSD alum, I know we're pretty proud, that's for sure. I had never gone to a Triton basketball game until two weeks ago. I went with the JMI team that invited me out. So good timing to be a fair weather fan for the Tritons here.

Yeah, let's see if they can win it on Thursday. You know, I would just also add that Earl Edwards is one of the athletic directors at UCSD. He's been there since the early 2000s. He's been about 25 years and he's helped transform that sports program from a D3 to D1. And and also Eric Olson has also been head coach since 2013. So he also has been there for over 10 plus years. It's a, it's a win all around. Whether they win, you know, the tournament in advance or not. It's a, it's a huge recognition I think New York Times featured feature the news and it's just great to see that there was four teams, both men's and women's make it to this NCAA March Madness event. And yeah, hopefully they can go get the W. Let's see it.

Yeah, totally. I fill out a few brackets with UCSD all the way. I know the they're playing, I think they're playing Michigan which if you look at the, the their actual like rankings on paper UCSD is actually a better team than Michigan even though it's a 12 and 5 seed. Like UCSD is top two in forcing turnovers and Michigan's we got top two in number of turnovers that they get. So yeah, I'm pumped to watch the match. It's during an event I'm putting on. So we'll have it streaming on phones there. But yeah, pumped to see it for sure. So we'll keep, we'll keep you posted here on the news, that's for sure. You've got a watch party. I know, doing it right. You're going to be watching on Friday.

Gathering people, watching some games on a Friday. We're just getting the community and connecting folks in San Diego. I think people are excited about basketball this year time around and you know, it's great to see San Diego representing as well.

Yeah, awesome. We'll keep everyone posted on that. Look at Fred's Twitter and LinkedIn feed for, for more basketball news.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started.

You want tech in tacos, Tacos in tech you know we got tacos in tech is on smash for the green guacamole keeper Countins counting beans Contador Cuen and three holies 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 fold the body origami we be surfing Coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero got a shout out to cost 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, the 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.

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.

A great breaking story. I think you broke the news at least locally in San Diego on another huge win for one of our serial tech founders here in town. You want to give us the news here of a recent great acquisition?

Yeah, I love, I love, you know, kind of talking, walking through the headlines, some of the top news. So we had a company that's based in the Bay Area. However, it was has some roots in San Diego. Their employees were there. One of the co founders is also San Diego entrepreneur as well. And the company is called Gretel AI. They were acquired by Nvidia as of Wednesday of this week. The news just broke the believe Wired broke the news and they have about 80 employees. They focus on synthetic data that is helping train AI models and it's actually not real data that they're using. They're using computer generated data. And this is huge news because we're seeing big tech like Nvidia, like others, acquire AI companies for a pretty sizable amount. They didn't talk about the deal amount for how much it was acquired. For their last valuation, Greta, I had about over 300 million and it's rumored a few sources have said that this was a nine figure acquisition. So some say it was a billion dollar acquisition but the terms have not, have not been disclosed and overall this was a huge win. I believe you actually know one of the co founders, Neil Alex Watson do.

Yeah. Well first of all, you wrote a story just like two weeks ago, right, Interviewing. So good on you to go and meet the teams, right? Not after the fact when everyone's swamping them for an interview. But yeah, Alex, I met him when he first moved Harvest AI to town. I believe Harvest AI was, was his past startup that man. I remember exactly meeting them. I still have a shirt. I think I still wear the Harvest AI shirt as like a pajama shirt. They were headquartered in the LPL building over in UCC area. Super cool team. Very shortly after I met them though, they got acquired by Amazon and the whole team got like pulled up to aws. I don't even know if Alex stayed or went there either, but he came back or stayed in San Diego and started Gretel, which has been super cool to see one of these transformative AI companies. I would say early to AI for sure. And we've had a few of these big AI companies in a sense acquired. I would look back at Mosaic ML getting acquired by Databricks, which was a serial team of AI builders who had also been acquired at previous company Nirvana Systems too. So you know, Santa's got a history of building AI. It's not a new hype thing here and I think it's the real deal. And let's go watch what they build next because that is what, that's what everyone does and they should keep building. So congrats to the Grail team and we're stoked for your success and we hope we can all Celebrate with you in the community as soon as possible alongside like this big win. There's been some other big wins in AI as well too, or at least in software and some others that are showing some, some good signs for just like the venture community, which the venture community in general has been for 2, 3 years has been a little stalled if not on a downtrend because of the lack of exits. And so you know, Gretel won. But big news this week was Whiz getting acquired by Google for $32 billion, all cash. This is actually round two of this almost happened or this happening. They tried I think a year ago and were pretty much stopped by the FTC in the previous administration. And what I read is that this, the teams felt this new administration would be way more amenable to this kind of acquisition happening. Both from Google not having really a cyber security product at all, which is what Wiz is an Israeli based cybersecurity company. And so they went ahead with transaction and it's a great sign. Wiz is, I mean it's only a five year old company I believe starting in 2020 and I think about 4 or 500 million in revenue in that time, which is incredible. So it goes to show not just the team but the execution that they had in five short years, like amazing. So that's a good sign for the whole community. Right? There's massive returns in that. First of all, Gretel by the way had some local investors as well, Section 32. And I think Wiz had some maybe or almost or may some other investors that will be gaining from that as well too. That's a good sign, right for investors especially local to Southern California to get return on capital of like 100 to 300 times. On that regard, what's your take here on Wiz and kind of the greater area?

Yeah, I mean I love talking about more the macro stuff. I think last year around this time we saw a lot of biotech acquisitions. You know, one month in January of last year we saw I think over 6 billion in all biotech acquisition. And I think me and you might have talked about, you know, where's the tech acquisitions at? Where are we seeing the M and A And now while this is not a San Diego deal with $30 billion acquisition for tech is a huge win for the broader tech ecosystem because now there's liquidity in the markets, even the employees become millionaires, maybe go start up their next thing, you know. There was several other M and A deals that happened simultaneously in the past couple days. The other one came to mind was Poppy which is actually not tech, it's consumer. It's like a seltzer drink or sparkling water drink. It was acquired by PepsiCo for over a billion dollars and I think Neil, you mentioned there was some local investors in that in that deal and then one other one was ServiceNow acquired another I believe AI type of company costs move works for 2.85 billion. So even though there has been a little bit of downturn of just funding at the beginning of the year because the new administration we're also seeing an uptick of M A deals across sectors tech, life, science and even consumer and we'll link those in the show notes for you to check out as well.

Yeah, Poppy's a good sign for our consumer area because it's a good for you soda. So it's a prebiotic soda that you know is definitely riding on this trend of good for you and we have a history of that actually here we have got Suja which is owned by Pepsi as well I believe and they had news recently that they are creating a new soda actually I think they're bringing Slice back on behalf of Pepsi and seeing Poppy have a win here and have local investors who invested in Poppy at a really like 2 digigit million and get an acquired here with a good return that all bodes well for capital getting reinvested back into the serial builders who are going to go build kind of similar things. It's a really good sign for us. We see that we've been seeing that bio. We hopefully we're seeing that you know Gretel serial AI building and serial cpg like that's all really really good signs for the ecosystem. Really healthy. So love to see it ServiceNow. While they found they started in San Diego still the executive team still have personal houses here. I know for sure they made a lot of early employees, early millionaires and early investors and other things so. And I hear it's like one of their fastest growing offices as well in town as well too. So I'll go to see Mark. We have Devin Daytonight and CTO tux coming Thursday night March 20th and our moderator is actually the head of AI D. Lee so come out and have a conversation with if you're a senior technical leader at devin Data night March 20th. Little shameless plug there. But we also got fundings also some really good signs of funding coming. We got some early stage and some late stage. You want to take us through some of the fundings that came out recently?

Yeah, so we had a local startup that's you know, superstar here town called Preston Will. Some might argue that they're no longer a standing company, but I would say they are because they have I think over 25 employees based here. They raised a 25 million Series C led by Northwestern Mutual and UBS Trust. And will is kind of a long time player in the space. I would say they're kind of one of the OG tech companies in the last 10 years or so ran by Cody Barbo and they have helped you know, consumers with their trust and wheels and estate planning needs and you know, you might have seen them on tv. They're now running commercials. I think Cody Barber has teased that he might see a, he might do a full commercial in the coming years and it's great to see them continue to crush it and hopefully they continue to grow the team and you know, hopefully, you know, drive an exit or. He, he tells me that he wants to take an IPO one day. So it's great to see that they're finding success in this environment.

Yeah but I love the team. I was one of their first investors personal angels. So you know, obviously excited for their financial sex but even more just for what they have built and grown. Cody does live in Dallas more because he for family reasons just had to be there during COVID and you, you they are 100 a San Diego team. He's probably here every other week with the team and it's for sure headquarters and just love seeing them their continued success for sure. We, Cody and I just two weeks ago at the San Diego Angel Academy did a really fun fireside chat together that we're gonna actually release from and it was really just a candid like how he got the first check and how I wrote the first check and kind of like what it's been like after like what. What value did he get from me and what did I perceive that I could give continue him from then to date from 2017 to now. So congrats team and keep building a great beast of a company and excited to see it. Speaking of companies that may or may not be wherever they're headquartered, but we'll still call them San Diego AQ Space, an early stage hardware and software company raised a $6 million round. UCSD alum I believe as well. And I think UCSD was one of their first test markets where they've got kind of software for an awareness of occupation or how many people are in a space so they can detect based on radio frequencies is the space being used occupied not that was the original early days. I remember their first pitch in that regard. What do you know about the office space team here, Fred?

Yeah, so this news just broke earlier this week. Occupace raised 6 million Series A. Some of the early investors participations of this new round was Occupy Ventures, Cold Fund, Hamilton Ventures, Shadow Ventures. Yeah, they've been around for some time. It's great to see, you know, two UCSD alums, Nick Halverson and Linus Gressel continue and the team continue to find success. They've created a cool device I believe was spun out of Qualcomm. Maybe they had technology From Qualcomm, some IoT data that allows you to. Yes, young people are in a space and they're working with some of these top universities, corporations and it's kind of a prop tech, prop tech company and I think there's also some local investors involved in that. So yeah, we're rooting for them.

Yeah, I'm fairly certain new a new fund is in from one of the funds that I think I might be NLP in. But Cove Fund and Okapi Ventures were in early which are great. These are two Orange county funds that have primarily invested in more San Diego companies than Orange county even though that's where they're based. So it's great to see them continue to reinvest into the, to these companies. The, the lead is Lewis and Clark Ventures out of the Midwest who also has invested in a few San Diego companies including Blue Nalu and a few others. So it's good to see out of town investors returning to fund San Diego companies. That's a great sign and great trend there. So congrats on Occupace team for their series A raise here. On the other side of investment we, we had some news that you pick picked up on the local investor and just how they're doing things differently with AI these days. You want to share some stuff about Tide Rock?

So the San Diego Business Journal did a great piece on a investment firm, Tide Rock, which is based in Solana Beach. They say they're an unlevered buyout firm. They're kind of a holding company. They buy I think middle market businesses and basically, you know, I actually met one of the early employees there and he was telling me that they're doubling down AI. They actually have a guy who created an internal AI tool where they drop a company in their chatbot and they can pull all the revenues, growth rate and all these different metrics. And the article kind of talks about how you know, they're, you know, in this kind of PE company acquiring model and they've been leveraging, you know, AI to do their jobs better. And you know, another metric and share about Tide Rock is they've continued to grow so substantially. They have about 50 employees. You know, they had one floor in Solana beach, now they're expanding to the first floor and the second floor. And I would just say keep an eye on them. If you're in the PE space, I'm sure you, you know Tide Rock, but if you don't look, look them up. They are, they are crushing it and continue to grow.

Awesome. Love to hear that. And I got to spend more time with them too, so thanks for bringing that up. All right, let's talk about some events coming up, which as always we do a poll from the Social Coyote. Shout out to Jonah tomorrow night I mentioned or whenever this is going out. Thursday, March 20th Devin Data Night and CTO Talks. These are two different events Orgs coming together. So the CTO Talks is a monthly group put on by Marcus Nexus and we join forces a few times a year to bring our technical leader audience together. March 20th. Next week is the return of the San Diego Hardware Meetup, which is a group, this is a global San Diego or the Global Hardware Meetup is kind of a global group that puts on meetups in different communities and they are teaming up with C Comp to put on a hardware meetup in North County. So it is March 25th. I'll put that in the show notes. Also the next night is March mingle. March 26th. This is one of the longest running tech events in San Diego. I think it's on year 20 and Falan Reason and June Clark have been running it for like 15 or 16 of those years. Falan runs the incubator space I'm in right now or the coworking space Answer with Ping. And he was also one of the founders of San Diego Startup Week. But March Mingle is kind of this once a year event that 6, 700 tech people would say all over the board come together and they always do it in like a fun unique venue. Last year was at the Bali High and this year they're taking over the Natural History Museum at Balboa park, which should be really fun to do that. So yeah, those are just some of the events on our radar. Just in the next seven days. There's so many more. Go check out the Social Coyote. Any other things on your radar, Fred?

I would just give a shout out to Hussein who runs North County Mixers. He has a great platform called starterbeach.com. there's always events that are happening in the community. We also share, you know, a lot of cool events on our LinkedIn and Twitter and X. So give us a follow there and we'll catch you on the next one.

Good call. Hold on, one more. We gotta shout out. So the, the Hussein events which just happened last night, you know, consistently getting 100, 150, 200 people out in north county, which people have been driving to for months now. And so actually one of the other co founders of Trust and Will, Brian Lamb said I'm going to start the central version of this. And so Monday night, March 24th is the San Diego County Startup Mixer at Harlem Brewing in Bayho. So put a link there, I'll be there. I think I'm buying first round of some drinks he asked me to do. I'm in and just excited to see more community gathering from tech people here in town. But as always follow us on our on our socials. We'll link them in the show notes. Make sure you're subscribed to our our sub stacks the business of San Diego and fresh brewed tech substacks and give us feedback on what else you want to hear about. You like the macro, you like the micro, you know we're here and we want to see more of you and we really appreciate you all building great companies so that we can talk about them and share about them. So thanks everyone, thanks for tuning in. Fred, thanks as always for joining.

Always a pleasure, Neil.

Cheers.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech, you know we got tacos and tech is on smash for the green guacamole keep accountants counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles founders trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping paella 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 taco stand in pesto 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 Cindy 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 SD techos with your host, Neil Bloom.

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, it.