Home BloomBites San Diego Q3 2019 Wrap Up – 10/8/19

San Diego Q3 2019 Wrap Up – 10/8/19

by FBT Team

By Neal Bloom

Q3 is in the books folks. Close out that Salesforce report and ship it. These past three months saw a good mix of fundings, acquisitions, new companies moving to town, and a new venture fund announcement. While the macro-tech headlines were focused on the effects of AB5 on W2 vs. 1099 workers and WeWork’s (not happening for now) IPO, San Diego had its own headlines, like local tech events such as ComicCon, TwitchCon, Womens Venture Summit, and Venture Summit, and of course, what new scooter company plopped in downtown today. 

Funds Raised

With a total funding of $573 million in Q3, tech accounted for a majority of that, a rarity. Some of San Diego’s companies are getting hard to differentiate between tech and biotech, which is a great thing. You are also seeing some consumer brands start to raise institutional money in San Diego, which is great for a traditionally big B2B town. Topping the list of funds raised include TuSimple with $120 million, continuing to haul in cash for this autonomous trucking startup, and hot on its tail, another trucking software company, SmartDrive, with $90 million.

Company Categories HQ Last Funding Amount Series Notable Investors
Ensysce Biosciences Biotech San Diego 9/26/19 $14,500,000 Series B Texas Wide Open for Business
GroGuru AgTech San Diego 9/24/19 $2,900,000 Seed Longley Capital, Right Side Capital, TCA
BlueNalu FoodTech San Diego 9/22/19 $20,000,000 Series A CPT Cap, Stray Dog Cap, Agronomics
Boundless Bio Biotech La Jolla 9/19/19 $46,400,000 Series A ARCH, Vertex, ARE, City Hill Ventures
TuSimple TruckTech San Diego 9/17/19 $120,000,000 Series D UPS, CDH, Mando
Deckard Technologies, Inc. Tech La Jolla 9/16/19 $500,000 Seed Michael Loeb, Neil Senturia
CommonGrounds Workspace CoWorking Carlsbad 9/13/19 $40,000,000 Series A Pacifica Enterprises, Mohammed Al-Abbar
SmartDrive Systems TruckTech San Diego 9/12/19 $90,000,000 Late Stage TPG, Founders Fund, Michelin
ZeaKal AgTech San Diego 9/10/19 $5,000,000 Series C Finistere, Middleland
SGI DNA Genetics La Jolla 9/9/19 $25,000,000 Series A BroadOak, Oxford Finance, Northpond Ventures
Immunicom Biotech San Diego 9/9/19 $1,850,000 Series B None stated
In Diagnostics Biotech Carlsbad 9/5/19 $3,000,000 Seed None stated
Aquacycl Cleantech San Diego 8/22/19 $4,000,000 Seed TCA, NextWave, Roddenberry Foundation
Shield AI Drones San Diego 8/20/19 $25,000,000 Series B SVB, A16z, HomeBrew, Riot.vc, Breyer Capital
Blooma Fintech San Diego 8/20/19 $2,750,000 Seed Serra Ventures, Floodgate, Crescent Ridge
Edge Blockchain San Diego 8/19/19 $400,000 Seed BitMEX, Fenbushi
Intersect Labs Tech San Diego 8/19/19 $150,000 Seed Y Combinator
Vuori Fashion Encinitas 8/15/19 $45,000,000 Venture Norwest Venture Partners
GroundMetrics Tech San Diego 8/12/19 $7,488,571 Venture None stated
Ezoic Tech Carlsbad 8/6/19 $33,000,000 Venture Sageview Capital
Visionful Tech San Diego 8/6/19 $150,000 Pre-Seed 500 Startups
Gallant Pet Biotech Vista 8/5/19 $7,000,000 Series A None stated
CourseKey EdTech San Diego 7/30/19 $5,000,000 Series A Steve Altman, Paul Jacobs, Bisk Ventures, Builders VC, Entangled Ventures
PHILTER Labs Electronics Encinitas 7/26/19 $3,000,000 Venture Explorer Equity Group
Stratify Genomics Biotech San Diego 7/25/19 $2,200,000 Seed None stated
Kopari Beauty Beauty San Diego 7/16/19 $20,000,000 Series A Unilever Ventures, Hillary Duff, Mila Kunis, Karlie Kloss, Ashton Kutcher
Cradle Genomics Biotech San Diego 7/16/19 $17,100,000 Series A Illumina Ventures, Section32, ARE, Axon Ventures
Trefoil Therapeutics Biotech San Diego 7/16/19 $28,000,000 Series A Bios Partners, Correlation VC
Mercato Tech San Diego 7/1/19 $4,000,000 Seed Greycroft, Correlation, Marcy Simon, Neil Senturia, Monica Woo, Michael Loeb
Total $573,388,571
None biotech $428,338,571

Acquisitions

Carlsbad-based Zingle was acquired for $42 million and Oceanside-based HireAHelper’s acquisition by Porch was finally announced publicly. With acquisitions like these, we always hope talent and capital continue to stay local and is funneled back into the ecosystem to keep the flywheel moving forward. Congrats teams!

Organization Name Categories HQ Acquired By Amount Exit Date
Zingle Tech Carlsbad Medallia $42M 9/24/19
Spy Optics Active Lifestyle Carlsbad Bolle Brands Unknown 9/16/19
BP Logix, Inc Tech Vista Finrock Growth Unknown 9/11/19
Financial Database Services Tech San Diego Broadridge Unknown 9/3/19
Fortitude Technology Tech San Diego AIS Unknown 9/1/19
Fairway Technologies Tech La Jolla Accenture Unknown 8/27/19
Affinity Sports Tech San Diego Stack Sports Unknown 8/22/19
Internet Marketing Inc Marketing Agency San Diego REQ Unknown 8/20/19
ticktBox Enterprises TicketTech San Diego ScreenEngine/ASI Unknown 8/15/19
EdgeWave Tech San Diego GoSecure Unknown 8/1/19
HireAHelper Logistics Tech Oceanside Porch Unknown 7/23/19
Sunray Tech Carlsbad SingleDigits Unknown 7/2/19

New Companies/SD Offices

In new company presence alerts, Biproxi moved to East Village upon its fundraise and ClickUp is opening a new San Diego office. Also Launch Factory Venture Studio picked their winners and launched their first company, OmniSync. Also building on the budding game studio scene in North County, Warner Bros. is opening a studio in downtown Carlsbad and with Apple buying Intel’s modem business, they now have a presence in Scripps Ranch and are building a tech campus in UTC.

New Funds & Startup Resources

In new San Diego capital news, local angel investors Tyson McDowell and Aaron Contorer hung up a shingle with newcomer Greatscale Ventures. Sony Electronics is also raising an innovation fund of $185 million. On the Private Equity-side, HCAP Partners closed a $150 million fund. Meanwhile, Tech Coast Angels’ ACE19 Annual Fund officially closed and was fully invested, ahead of plan. Tech Coast Angels also closed it’s 2nd Annual Fund, ACE20 within 30 days to deploy over the next 15 months, and has already funded its first deal. I am personally excited to be a part of these two funds alongside an increasing amount of local entrepreneurs who are also putting money back into the community through investing. Check out the full 2018 investment numbers in this Annual Report

For startups, more resources have been coming online, like Qualcomm teaming up with San Diego Sports Innovators incubator. Also the County of San Diego and USD also launched a new accelerator for small businesses in underserved communities called Innovate-Up

We are going into Q4 so strong and I can’t wait to further help our companies grow and flourish in San Diego!

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