2018 was awesome, with a positive change in momentum in the San Diego tech ecosystem. On top of enthusiastic metrics in funding, exits, and new local funds, we as a community found our voice and inner evangelist. San Diego finally started to join the Twitter conversation around tech and spread the word beyond our own borders. SD Life Changing gave us a lot of talking points and we popped up on people’s radars outside of our region.
We need more of this. How? By sharing good content. Step...
By Neal Bloom
San Diego’s tech ecosystem continues to be boosted by large funding deals. Overwhelmingly, 2018 has been a great year for funding dollar amount in San Diego. The fourth quarter was no different from this trend - more money, fewer deals.
In Q4, 38 companies raised $1.1 billion in funding in San Diego, compared to Q4 2017 when 61 companies raised $500 million.
Some notable fundings for technology companies included Seismic Software, a sales enablement SaaS, raising $100...
2018 - what a year! This spring, Fresh Brewed Tech launched the Tacos & Tech Podcast with our friends at Cox Business, and then The Local Buzznewsletter in June. Besides amplifying/aggregating great existing content, we have written over 25 original articles and have been overwhelmed by your interest and story ideas. Keep them coming!
We have broken down the different elements of the San Diego ecosystem, including talent, capital, and satellite companies in the ecosystem overviews ....
Happy Giving Tuesday! Locally, we have seen strong growth from a number of web platforms that benefit both individuals through crowdfunding or nonprofits directly.
Welcome to the social good tech age, being led by the San Diego region. Companies like GoFundMe ,founded in and still maintaining an office in San Diego, acquired Crowdrise , also a San Diego native. Both platforms have played major roles in elevating the crowdfunding space. Another dynamic company, Classy , has grown in the...
While San Diego may have its own tech veterans of the early digital age, our strong military-based local economy supports a significant amount of programs to help transitioning military service people find their inner entrepreneur. The Navy, for example, hosts its own at sea pitch competition,the Athena Project , while UCSD has created a program at Camp Pendleton for the Marines, Startup Battlefield 101 , and the UCSD Rady School of Management has the Veteran Ventures program. The EDC and...
San Diego’s tech ecosystem is consistently highlighted by outsiders for how collaborative it is. Many organizations come together for the better of the community and QuickPitch is one great example of that.
Over the last few years, three different pitch events have banded together - SDVG’s PitchFest, TCA’s QuickPitch, and Cox Business’s GetStarted - to create one great event with a large prize purse of $75,000.
On October 24, 10 companies live pitched, and three prevailed in the...
In San Diego, tech and coffee go together like chips and guac. San Diegans absolutely have their local favorite “buzz” bars, like Better Buzz, Westbean, Moniker General, and within the last year, we have had a great infiltration of Philz Coffee too.
But what we also have is a burgeoning roasting community, just like our famous craft beer scene, and now we have coffee tech. In this week’s AzTech feature, you’ll get to know VendiBean and its fantastic in-office high tech coffee kiosk....
This is what a weekend in San Diego looks like: Hera Venture Summit supports 400 women and ally entrepreneurs and investors over a one-day conference, venture capitalist Arlan Hamilton visits San Diego to hear 15 pitches and meet with 13 local LPs in her Backstage Studio, and Ad Astra Ventures announces the new female-led companies in cohort two .
This is San Diego. The reason we have so many women-led companies is because we have focused on the resources needed to support our...
The Four Comma Club in San Diego: While Amazon has become the second company to hit $1 trillion in valuation after Apple, the chase is still on for other FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) stocks. So, I thought it would be interesting to look at the relationship between the most popular tech stocks and San Diego. Currently, Amazon and Alphabet/Google have engineering offices in San Diego, on top of Amazon’s warehouses and having one of the first Amazon Stores in the UTC...
By Neal Bloom
Over the last couple of years, we have seen a growth of tech companies opening satellite offices in San Diego, including Amazon and Walmart Labs. This brings more strong talent and expertise to the region. And we all know, once you come to San Diego, you don’t leave.
San Diego is also the first city to have a satellite office in San Francisco - The Beachhead by San Diego Venture Group allows for roving SD entrepreneurs to have a home away from home while visiting the Bay...