San Diego Tech News Weekly – October 22, 2021

Neal: Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News by Neal Bloom and Jonah Peake 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 

Jonah: Hey I’m Jonah, ops guy building marketplaces spent time at Lime, Handy, and Postmates and I enjoy helping startups throughout San Diego. Today, we have special guest Fred Grier joining us. Let’s dive into our five stories of the week:

For Oct 22, 2021:

1. San Diego scientists are working on a vaccine against all coronaviruses. Yes, all of them
   1. Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology
      1. Won $2.6m grant
      2. Last 5 years with a potential boost at year 4
      3. Develop shots against all corona viruses
         1. Past, current and future
      4. SARS, MERS, Covid19 are all corona viruses
      5. This funding was from National Institutes of Health
      6. The goal is to ward off the next pandemic before it starts
      7. To work, they need to find surface features that don’t change
      8. Then train the immune system
      9. Even slight changes can impact everything
         1. Lame but kind of like snowflakes vary (vermont guy)
      10. Another goal of this research to get the best immunity
          1. How many doses people need
          2. How far apart
          3. RNA (pfizer / moderna)
          4. Other methods
      11. Tons of researchers are chasing this goal
          1. We need to get there
          2. Hoping it comes from a San Diegan though
   2. Shares in this Encinitas-based biotech jump 31 percent in first day of trading
      1. Biotech IPO
      2. Ventyx Biosciences joined the pack of newly minted San Diego public companies on Thursday, raising nearly $152 million to pursue drugs for psoriasis, Crohn’s disease and other ailments.
      3. The stock had a good first day of trading, gaining 31 percent to close at $21.02 on the Nasdaq.
      4. Ventyx is at least the 15th San Diego area startup to go public this calendar year. Many of these firms are in the life science sector and remain years away from having a drug ready to seek regulatory approval.
      5. The company raised $165 million prior to the IPO
   3. San Diego County to expand its renewable energy sources
      1. SD is seeking more renewable energy options
      2. Wind and Solar are obviously big in the region
      3. Board of supervisors approved looking at alt sources
      4. Some of these options are around the clock (unlike solar)
         1. Offshore Wind
            1. US is lagging behind europe
            2. Unfortunately, the navy considered large portions of our coast “wind exclusive” 
            3. Interfering with training missions 
         2. Geothermal
            1. 6% of CA power is currently geo thermal
            2. 40 plants
         3. Wave energy
            1. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates
               1. Enough potential for 67% west coast needs
               2. 23 million homes 
            2. But the tech is not ready
            3. Difficult to design 
            4. Keep an eye on CalWave, who has a pilot off the coast of SD
      5. The cities goal is to be 100% renewable by 2030
         1. Slash net carbon to 0 by 2035
            1. Net 0 basically means that the amount produces = amount removed from atmosphere
      6. The city is looking to balance job impact as well
      7. Adding jobs while reducing emissions
   4. Flock Freight gets $215 million as it remakes truck shipping
      1. Nice story by Mike
      2. Flock joins an elite class of SD Unicorns
         1. Seismic
         2. Tealium
         3. Shield AI
         4. ClickUp
      3. Founded in 2015 (not that young)
         1. 100s Millions revenue
         2. Employing 325
      4. Cash will go towards improving the shared truckload platform
      5. Marketplace: Cargo Pooling
         1. Small amounts to combine into full truck loads
         2. Filling empty space / matching fasted route
      6. Shippers only pay for what they use
      7. They estimate that 15k tons of emissions cut to date
      8. Typically, goods are sent to terminals, unloaded, reloaded into new vehicles
   5.  UCSD won $1M grant to fund accelerator for under represented entrepreneurs 
      1. Will support 90 individual entrepreneurs and startups from underserved communities in the San Diego area.
      2. Fifty organizations from 26 states were awarded grants totaling $36.5 million. Recipients also may be able to leverage $40 million more in matching funds via the program’s private and public sector partners.
      3. UCSD says 760 UCSD-affiliated startups operating across the country and around the world, generating an estimated $16.5 billion in annual revenue.
   6. Fleet Week – https://www.sdbj.com/news/2021/oct/19/fleet-week/ Nov 4-11
      1. STEM events downtown at the Broadway Pier – Nov 4 & 5
      2. SD MAC new report shows 350,000 military related jobs
         1. Military Advisory Council
      3. 110,000 service people, 35,000 civilians plus gov contractors
      4. 1 in 5 jobs are military related in SD, compared to 1 in 20 lifesciences
      5. $35B in direct spending drives $55B in economic activity

Acq – Fondi acq by Classy