August 17, 2021
THE LOCAL BUZZ
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BLOOMBITES
While we don’t totally celebrate a company raising capital, it is a milestone that follows a start-up’s rapid growth, and the growth of San Diego tech and biotech companies is attracting more and more venture capital. As Mike Krenn of Connect recently noted, San Diego just saw $5.2 billion in venture capital through July, which is the same number we saw during the entire year of 2020. This follows global venture capital trends, which is seeing much more capital deployed this year even off record capital deployment in 2020. Here’s to more companies taking the risk of building big and building fast. More capital does mean more jobs.

What is also trending is mergers and acquisitions (M&A), as more companies take the path of liquidity by either a strategic or financial entity. San Diego-based LawnLove is one of these companies that joined forces with a competitor to grow a larger entity. Congrats to Jeremy Yamaguchi and team! Even more empowering is seeing our start-ups acquire other companies as their growth rockets forward, like SOCI acquiring Brandify and Seismic
acquiring Lessonly, while recapitalizing at a $3 billion valuation.

Another M&A story is the company MicroAcquire.com, which is the team formerly behind Bizness Apps, a San Diego-based mobile apps company that sold in 2018. The team came back together to build MicroAcquire.com, the marketplace for software to sell themselves to interested buyers, enabling more entrepreneurs to find a healthy successful exit for their company. Local Interlock Capital angel syndicate recently participated in a fundraise for the company.

Cheers,

And the Top Five Tech News Stories of the week to watch:

  • Seismic Software acquires Lessonly and raises new capital valuing it at $3B
  • SDG&E prepares to lead in the new EV world through infrastructure overhaul
  • Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute Gets $3.1M for Glucose Device Study 
  • Demand for Lab Space increased 280% in San Diego during the pandemic 
  • Harpoon Ventures raises a new $125M fund as it seeks to unlock federal contracts for startups

Follow @FreshBrewedTech on Twitter for daily SD tech news.
TACOS & TECH PODCAST

To continue cultivating a strong innovation ecosystem, UC San Diego established a local chapter of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Meet the UC San Diego team who helped create this chapter: Paul Roben and Al
JOBS SPOTLIGHT
The talent market is hot especially for tech talent. Check out the new ‘stealth’ job board by Fresh Brewed Tech for early access. Full launch coming soon.
Cox Business (San Diego)

Cox Media (Clairemont)

Cox Business (San Diego)

Leica Biosystems (Vista)

Marketing Operations Specialist Illumina (La Jolla)
SDSU (Mid-City)

Housecall Pro (Miramar)

Account Executive, Commercial Classy.org (Remote)

ClickUp (Remote)

GoSite ( San Diego) 
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Naturally San Diego
August 19

#LatinaGeeks
August 26

Black Tech Link
August 28

Stella Labs
September 17-18
RECENT FUNDINGS
Seismic, sales enablement platform, $170M Series G with Permira, JMI Equity, and Lightspeed Venture Partners

XinThera, drug discovery company, $50M Series B with Foresite Capital and TTM Capital

Engrail Therapeutics, nervous system disease medicine developer, $32M Series A with Nan Fung Life Sciences

Aardvark Therapeutics, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, $29M Series B with Sorrento Therapeutics and Korea Omega Investment

Debut Biotech, biotechnology company, $22.6M Series A with Material Impact Fund and KdT Ventures

Wildfire Systems, white-label e-commerce platform, $15M Series A with Bonfire Ventures and Moonshots Capital

Entando, open source software company, $11M Series B with Vertis SGR S.p.A. and United Ventures

junolive, community-building software company, $3.5M Seed with Jerry Murdock and Walter Scott
AQUISITIONS
Vividion Therapeutics by Bayer for $1.5B

Irisys by Recro Pharma for $50M

BakerNowicki Design Studio by DLR Group

Eboost Consulting by Principle Company

Lawn Love by LawnStarter

Lessonly by Seismic

Monster Tool by GWS Tool Group
SD-BASED INVESTORS IN THE NEWS
Qualcomm Ventures invests in MindTickle

Sorrento Therapeutics invests in Aardvark Therapeutics

HCAP Partners invests in Myndshft Technologies Inc.
TACO TO YOU LATER
August is Black Owned Business Month so let's...
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