Neal: Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News by Neal Bloom and Sesha Machiraju from Fresh Brewed Tech. Every Friday at 12:30pm Pacific on Clubhouse and now we record them for you to enjoy as well. Find these episodes on Freshbrewedtech.com and favorite podcast player for Tacos and Tech Podcast
I’m Neal Bloom, entrepreneur, investor, and community builder
Sesha: Hey I’m Sesha, former biotech data person, currently working on cyber & cloud evangelism at Microsoft Azure – check us out on Twitter @AzureSupport. SD transplant by way of Seattle, fond of all things tech, startups, and data.
2/17/23
2022 Tech Report by Fresh Brewed Tech
Fred’s article: https://sdfounders.substack.com/p/san-diego-hauls-in-48b-in-vc-in-2022
Aptera’s Launch Vehicle Announced
- EV solar 3 wheel vehicle, Carlsbad-based
- 40 miles on the solar cells, 400 mile range, 101 mph
- Have raised $100m+ to date
- Aptera unveiled their Launch Edition of which they have 40,000 pre-orders
- Having investors pay to get their orders faster, crowdfunding style
- Current production in Carlsbad, 8 plants by 2028
- Production to begin by end of 2023
Cars and Bids Receives Chernin Group Investment
- Car super influencer Doug Demuro co-founded car auction marketplace Cars and Bids
- Huge Youtube following – 4.5m followers, launched in 2013
- Co-founded with Blake Machado of Eido Studios/Sweetlabs
- Chernin Group invest exclusively in creator led and founded companies, like MeatEater and Barstool Sports
- With this raise, they hired a professional CEO to scale
- New CEO Ro Choy previously CEO of BitTorrent and the CBO of Luxe. Ro began his career at eBay Motors
Viasat’s $7.3 Billion Purchase of Inmarsat Faces European Antitrust Opposition
- We first heard about Viasat a few months ago – when they were selling their tactical business unit to L3Harris – well now they’re back in the news as their $7.3B acquisition of their rival satellite company Inmarsat has caused antitrust scrutiny by the European Antitrust regulators
- Inmarsat and Viasat (in addition to Panasonic and Intelsat) are competitors in supplying of broadband inflight connectivity (IFC) services to commercial airlines
- The concern is that Viasat acquiring Inmarsat would reduce competition in the supply of broadband IFC services
- The European commission set June 29th to make a decision
- Makes their decision to sell off their $1.6B MIDS tactical radio business unit a lot more clear
Genentech Begins $450 Million Expansion in Oceanside to Make New Drugs for Rare Diseases
- Genentech begins expansion of their Oceanside biotech campus with $450M facility focused on personalized medication
- This will be in addition n addition to the seven existing buildings on a 60-acre site on Antibody Way.
- It will be operational in early 2025 and support 150 new positions
Events
Cool Companies app due Feb 20
Tech Coffee Meetup Feb 21
CTO Talks Feb 28
1st Mondays – in TJ! March 6
Meet the Money – Life Science Investors March 9
Dev & Data Night March 16
Connect’s XEO application for March Cohort
AgTech Gathering May 2
