Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

National Alliance Focuses on Turning Algal Biofuels Into Viable Industry

Algae Biofuels, energy, people

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

It was just over a year ago that some of San Diego’s biggest life sciences research institutions announced the formation of SD-CAB, the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, amid some outsized calls to make San Diego the top of the mountain in biofuels development. Since then, we’ve continued to see occasional flurries of activity, including startup financings, industry partnerships, and development plans.

At another level, though, a lot of hard work remains to make algal biofuels a reality. An all-day symposium held last month at the Salk Institute highlighted some of the basic R&D that still needs to get done. A two-day Algae World Summit that begins today at the Del Mar Hilton is more of the same, with sessions on “real world” experiences in growing algae, “meeting the challenges” of growing algae in industrial quantities, and practical considerations in project development.

Jose Olivares outlined some of these technical issues for me when he came through San Diego a few weeks ago. Olivares, who was a deputy biosciences leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is now executive director of, the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB), a consortium of industry, academic, and government researchers. Locally, the alliance includes UC San Diego, as wells as some scientists from HR BioPetroleum and Kai BioEnergy.

Basically, what Olivares told me is that while it is scientifically possible to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from algae, a host of complex engineering and production problems must be solved before algal biofuels production can become an economically viable industry.

“Our mission is to cover innovative technologies that can be brought to bear on any and all parts of algal biofuels production,” Olivares said. Officially, the NAABB’s mission is to lay the technical foundations for a scalable, responsible, and affordable renewable biofuels industry. “We can bring basic scientific principles to prove that the technologies work, and if they don’t work, to establish under what conditions they don’t work,” Olivares said.

As a national alliance, Olivares said the NAABB is focusing its …Next Page »

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May 17, 2010
Venture Financing Looking Up, Sorenson Media Launches Online Video Technology, Avalon Ventures Buys Copley Building, & More San Diego BizTech News

Roundup, VC, Mobile Health

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

The emerging mobile health industry made a stronger showing last week than it has in past years at its annual Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance Convergence Summit. Get the latest uptick in wireless health and other news now.

—San Diego’s Avalon Ventures founder Kevin Kinsella told me the firm’s investment in San Francisco-based Zynga, which develops multiplayer browser games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, might yield the best returns in Avalon’s 27-year history. Kinsella also told me Avalon Ventures has purchased the La Jolla office building that was previously the corporate headquarters for the Copley Press, the former longtime publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune and other newspapers.

—A venture financing report released by the Cooley law firm (previously known as Cooley, Godward, Kronish) says there were more “up rounds” than flat or “down rounds” in the first quarter of 2010. That’s the first time that’s happened since the summer of 2008. An up round reflects the increased valuation of a venture-backed company, while a down round means the company is worth less than it was in the previous financing round.

—After gaining experience with its Sorenson 360 online video platform (OVP) with small and medium businesses, Carlsbad, CA-based Sorenson Media introduced an upgraded version of its OVP for big media and enterprise customers. CEO Peter Csathy told me Sorenson is …Next Page »

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May 17, 2010
Cleantech Becoming ‘Third Leg’ of VC Investing Stool—But Just How Big is That Leg?

cleantech, funding, Venture Capital

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

When Ira Ehrenpreis came through San Diego a couple of weeks ago, the cleantech investment partner at Palo Alto, CA-based Technology Partners said there was no such thing as a cleantech investment category when his firm began investing 25 years ago. At that time, Technology Partner’s investments in environmentally friendly technologies amounted to less than 1 percent of the firm’s portfolio.

In contrast, VCs invested $100 million in cleantech deals during the first week of 2010, according to Ehrenpreis. Even during the credit crisis and nationwide recession, cleantech has shown over the past two years that it’s an enduring sector. Ehrenpreis told the San Diego Venture Group that cleantech is emerging as “the third leg of a VC, along with IT and the life sciences”—which traditionally represent the two largest VC investment categories.

Other analysts emphatically agreed.

But it is difficult to quantify just how big cleantech has gotten, because it is measured by different investment monitoring organizations in fundamentally different ways.

For example, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers count renewable energy and many energy deals as cleantech investments in their quarterly MoneyTree Report. Also included are VC investments in air filters, purification and monitoring equipment; water treatment and waste disposal systems, and a dozen other environmentally oriented categories. But Dow Jones VentureSource counts energy and utility deals separately from cleantech deals in its surveys—and uses its own list of nearly a dozen industries to define what cleantech is.

The San Francisco-based Cleantech Group says it coined the term “cleantech” when the firm was founded in 2002 and it began analyzing VC investments in energy efficiency, biofuels, transportation, and other clean and green technologies as a distinct sector. The group specializes in cleantech market research and business intelligence, and its cleantech data has been screened and honed to perfection. But you can’t compare it with the NVCA or Dow Jones data, because the group combines its cleantech investment data for the U.S. with the countries of Central America, Mexico, Canada as part of the North America Region.

In North America, cleantech startups raised $3.5 billion in 298 VC investments last year, a 42 percent decline from 2008, when there were 314 deals, according to the Cleantech Group.

The MoneyTree Report, which counts only …Next Page »

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April 30, 2010
Celladon Enjoys Early Success With Gene Therapy Trial, FDA Gives Digirad Green Light for a Nuclear Camera, Aragon Pharmaceuticals Gets $22M & More San Diego Biotech News

Roundup, Life Sciences, funding

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

We saw a healthy mix of life sciences news over the past week, with a generous serving of device news, some venture funding, a dash of clinical trial results, and voila! Enjoy!

—San Diego’s Celladon said an experimental gene therapy treatment met its primary goal of showing the treatment was more effective than a placebo in a trial that enrolled 39 heart patients. The experiment tested a single-shot infusion of Mydicar, Celladon’s gene therapy drug.

—San Diego’s Aragon Pharmaceuticals said it raised $22 million in venture funding to advance its lead drug treatment for prostate cancer into an initial clinical trial. The startup is testing a new approach to treating cancers by targeting certain hormones.

—The slicing and dicing of venture capital data from the first three months of 2010 continued this week, with a new MoneyTree report saying life sciences is holding its position as the largest single industry getting venture capital funding nationwide. The report, “Holding the Lead,” says VC firms invested $1.3 billion in 160 deals nationwide—representing 28 percent of all dollars invested and 23 percent of the deals. The report was prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

—San Diego’s Digirad (NASDAQ: DRAD) said the FDA gave the Poway, CA, company approval to market Ergo, a nuclear imaging camera system for hospitals that’s smaller and more portable than existing hospital systems.

—Luke profiled San Diego-based NuVasive (NASDAQ: NUVA), which has developed a new approach for repairing damaged or aging vertebrae. NuVasive’s technology enables surgeons to go into the body through a patient’s side, rather that through the front or back, giving doctors easier access to the spine.

—The Flax Council of Canada is investing about $5.5 million through a partnership with San Diego’s Cibus Global to develop a crop strain of flax that is resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the widely used weed killer Roundup. Cibus says it intends to develop a strain that’s acceptable to Europeans opposed to genetically modified crops.

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April 29, 2010
UV Sciences Tries to Tap Into Water Purification Industry With Smaller and Less Costly Technology

cleantech, innovation, Water Purification

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

After Ultraviolet Sciences was founded in 2002, it took the little San Diego cleantech startup seven years to launch its first product. It’s a water purification device that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to sterilize microbial contaminants in drinking water.

Such UV technology has been gaining momentum in recent years as an alternative to chlorine disinfectant, CEO Ron Chaffee says. It’s a trend that might reflect the wave of interest and enthusiasm that nearly all things clean and green have been generating. Pure water encompasses an estimated $l billion-dollar global market that includes bottling and beverage plants, municipal and quasi-governmental water treatment plants, and other commercial, pharmaceutical, and industrial uses. Semiconductor manufacturers, for example, require huge quantities of ultra-pure water to rinse silicon wafers.

Using UV technology to kill germs is an idea that’s been around for 50 years, Chaffee says. Big conglomerates like GE, Siemens, ITT, and Wedeco make most of the existing UV water purification equipment. It’s been hard for UV Sciences to compete. Chaffee says they often have trouble differentiating themselves from equipment makers, even though he sees UV Sciences as more of a technology development company. Chaffee also contends that gallon-for-gallon, the proprietary tools designed by UV Sciences founder J.R. “Randy” Cooper are 75 percent smaller than existing UV purifiers, cost 50 percent less to buy, and cost 90 percent less to operate.

Even so, Chaffee describes UV Sciences as a “capitally constrained” startup in an established industry where most of the marketing is conducted through visits with customers and trade shows, which can quickly get expensive. “I don’t think our challenges are any different than any other small startup trying to break into a mature market,” Chaffee says.

Since the company opened its office in 2004, Chaffee says UV Sciences has raised $1.7 million in seed and Series A venture funding, and collected another $816,000 through a government technology transfer grant for small business.

One sign that the little startup might be onto something emerged last week, when Chaffee gave a presentation about UV Sciences to the San Diego chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum. Sitting in the audience were two engineers from …Next Page »

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April 29, 2010
High-Tech Jobs Stayed Resilient Amid Last Year’s National Job Losses, TechAmerica Says

Layoffs, Innovation Economy, employment

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

The high-tech industry lost 245,600 jobs, or about 4 percent of the nationwide technology workforce, as the recession hit bottom last year, according a report being released today. But there are still jobs to be had in high-tech fields. Unemployment in several high-tech sectors remained below 5 percent at a time when overall unemployment soared above 9 percent nationwide, according to the 13th annual Cyberstates 2010 report issued by the TechAmerica Foundation.

All tech sectors lost jobs, but “even during the depths of the recession, most high-tech workers were still employed,” says Kevin Carroll, TechAmerica’s regional director for Southern California. The report, which relies on the most recent data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, covers tech employment nationwide in 2009—and provides state-by-state information on employment, wages, and other data in 2008.

Considering all that has happened to the economy over the past year, Carroll acknowledges that the 2008 data for California and other states is too outdated to provide many insights. But he says a few points are worth extracting from the 2009 data:

—The four main components of the high-tech industry—manufacturing, communications services, software services, and engineering and tech services—all lost jobs in 2009.

—Software services experienced the smallest decline nationwide, losing 20,700 jobs in 2009. That’s about one percent of the 1.7 million software jobs that existed in the previous year.

—Communication services lost …Next Page »

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April 28, 2010
The Company is Dead, But Its PayPal Billing Service Lives On

Web-based services, Internet, people

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

If a consumer-oriented Web-based services company goes out of business, shouldn’t its PayPal account expire too?

I’m just wondering if other online consumers have had a similar experience to Encinitas, CA, resident Judd Handler. He says he recently discovered that he had been charged $17.95 on his PayPal account for a junk-mail screening service provided through ProQuo, a San Diego-based startup that went belly up last October.

Handler says he vaguely remembers signing up for the service just over a year ago at a booth during the 2009 Earth Day festivities in San Diego’s Balboa Park. He says he hates junk mail, and signed up for what he thought was a free Web-based subscription service to block unwanted catalogs, flyers and other snail mail marketing come-ons. But ProQuo’s offer was only free for the first year. After that, the company began charging its subscribers $17.95 a year for the service, whose actual function enabled users to fill out an online form that specified the junk mail they wanted to block.

After conducting a quick online search, Handler saw that I had reported last fall on the demise of ProQuo, which had raised $15 million in venture capital before ceasing operations. He asks, “Wouldn’t you think the merchant account would be shut down?”

Good question.

As it turns out, I happen to know Bob Nascenzi, an experienced software industry executive who was hired by ProQuo’s board to unwind the business after the founding CEO departed at this time last year. Nascenzi was surprised by the story. “I don’t know where that money would have gone,” he says, “because ProQuo doesn’t exist any more.”

Good point.

Nascenzi checked with ProQuo’s former CFO and says he learned that when she was terminating the company’s business relationships last year, PayPal told her it could not cancel the ProQuo account. He says that Handler “should definitely challenge that charge, because there’s no place for the money to go.”

This particular transaction seems less interesting to me than the concept that a company might go out of business, while its billing arrangements continue to live on. PayPal has not responded to my requests for comment. I sent a couple of e-mail inquiries to Kimberly Conley and another public relations representative last week, and left a voice message for Conley again today.

We’re not consumer advocates here at Xconomy, and I’m not in a position to help anyone resolve their billing disputes with PayPal. But we are curious about just how widespread this issue might be. So add a comment below if Handler’s tale sounds all-too-familiar to you.

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April 27, 2010
FDA Gives Digirad OK to Market Ergo Device

Life Sciences, Medical imaging, FDA

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Digirad (NASDAQ: DRAD), a medical imaging company based in Poway, CA, says it got regulatory approval to market Ergo, a new nuclear imaging camera system for hospitals. Digirad CEO Todd Clyde tells the San Diego Union-Tribune that what sets the solid-state camera apart is its field of view and its portability, which means patients won’t have to be wheeled from their hospital rooms to get scanned.

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April 27, 2010
New Connect Lobbyist for Technology Innovation Discusses His Role and Priorities

people, Innovation Economy, Entrepreneurship

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Connect CEO Duane Roth made hiring a full-time lobbyist in Washington D.C. a key part of last summer’s initiative to boost San Diego’s innovation economy. Last week, the nonprofit group named Timothy Tardibono, a lawyer and policy analyst, as its government affairs director and chief counsel—and Tardibono says he’s already got some issues on his radar.

“I’ve been here for four or five days, and there’s already two bills that could really hurt San Diego’s innovation community,” says Tardibono, who served most recently as legal counsel to Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Tardibono, who is a full-time employee of Connect, spoke to me by phone from his new office in Washington.

Tardibono says one issue stems from a provision of the financial reform act introduced by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd. The provision raises the requirements for a wealthy individual to qualify as an “accredited investor,” which would make it harder to make angel investments in startups. A pending amendment will fix that provision, enabling innovative startups to still raise needed capital from angel investors. But Tardibono says, “It’s a great example of why Connect needs eyes on the ground here in Washington.”

The other issue is a broader and more complex effort to reform both patent law and to overhaul the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “Patent reform only comes to the Hill every two or three decades,” Tardibono says. While the debate has been cast as “a clash of the titans—with big high-tech versus big pharma,” Tardibono says the legislation also is stirring a variety of concerns among small investors about the ability of large technology companies to race to the patent office to claim patent protections.

Tardibono intends to discuss the technology community’s need for immigration reform, saying, “There is a great need to retain engineers and scientists from other countries to help startups develop technologies and big companies to develop new products.” He also wants to win more federal grants and other types of funding for technology startups.

Tardibono says his prime directive, though, is to voice the concerns of entrepreneurs and technology innovators because the process of technology innovation “is really not well-understood here on Capitol Hill,” a sentiment echoed in San Diego by Connect’s Roth.

“First of all, we call him an advocate, not a lobbyist,” Roth says. “Our constituency is broad and his mission really is education. His job is to …Next Page »

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April 27, 2010
SciVee Partners With Thomson Reuters

Media, Partnerships, Streaming Video

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

SciVee CEO Marc Friedmann tells me the San Diego startup I profiled previously as a YouTube for scientists, has struck a partnership with ScholarOne, the peer-review workflow management system operated by Thomson Reuters. The agreement will give users of ScholarOne Abstracts (previously known as Abstract Central) the ability to capture and share multimedia content from scientific presentations. Friedmann says financial terms were not disclosed.

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April 26, 2010
Confident Technologies Makes San Diego Debut, Startups Get Fresh Venture Funding, Peter Preuss Gets Inducted to Connect Hall of Fame, & More San Diego BizTech News

Roundup, people, Peter Preuss

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

—Xconomy’s list of San Diego’s top 10 VC deals during the first quarter of 2010 included funding for three high-tech startups, although investments in life sciences and medical devices accounted for most of the money and deals. EMN8, which is developing automated kiosks for fast-service restaurants, raised almost $14.5 million; Avaak, which developed a wireless webcam system, got $10 million; and AwarePoint, which developed a wireless tag and tracking system for medical equipment and supplies, also got $10 million.

—Confident Technologies, a new startup with network security technology salvaged from Portland, OR-based Vidoop, announced its debut as a San Diego-based startup. The company says its image-based security technology is intuitive and easier for customers to remember.

—Connect inducted software industry pioneer Peter Preuss into its Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame, a pantheon that includes Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, Idec Pharmaceuticals founder William Rastetter, and SAIC founder J. Robert Beyster. Preuss, the eighth inductee, founded ISSCO, one of the first software companies to specialize in computer graphics. He sold the company to Computer Associates in 1986.

—San Diego’s Imagine Communications, a five-year-old digital video startup, raised $10 million in a Series C round of venture funding from its existing venture investors. The company, which has now secured more than $34 million, specializes in digital video technology for cable TV operators.

—Google Ventures led a $5 million Series B round of venture funding for San Diego’s OpenCandy, a web-based venture that operates a kind of online marketplace for open-source software. The company, started by …Next Page »

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April 26, 2010
Connect Inducts Software Pioneer Peter Preuss to Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame

people, Peter Preuss, Connect

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Connect, San Diego’s non-profit group for technology innovation, officially inducted software industry pioneer Peter Preuss into its Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame during a luncheon yesterday that recounted his life story—from a nerd growing up in postwar Berlin to a successful technology entrepreneur and prominent patron of both education and cancer research.

Preuss is the eighth inductee in a pantheon that includes some of San Diego’s biggest names in entrepreneurship and technology innovation, including Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, cancer researcher and venture capitalist Ivor Royston, Idec Pharmaceuticals founder William Rastetter, and SAIC founder J. Robert Beyster.

“The criteria is that they built great companies, but they also gave back to the community,” said Connect CEO (and Xconomist) Duane Roth.

Peter Preuss

Preuss was close to completing his doctoral thesis in mathematics at UC San Diego in 1970, when he started a software company that enabled programmers to create pie charts and other graphics on the 10-megahertz “supercomputers” of that era. The company, known as ISSCO (Integrated Software Systems Corp.) grew to be the nation’s leading independent software company then specializing in data representation graphics and graphical information systems, with 32 offices worldwide and two public stock offerings. ISSCO was acquired by Computer Associates in 1986.

Preuss told the luncheon audience that he focused his energy on cancer research after a family member was diagnosed with a brain tumor. With what he described as “entrepreneurial hubris,” he said, “I was absolutely convinced that if I put all my energy into it, that we will find a solution” to cancer. In the process, he founded the …Next Page »

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April 23, 2010
San Diego’s Place in the Sun: Getting Smarter About Energy, Starting June 8

energy, cleantech, Xconomy

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States, an occasion that is now observed by just about every country on the planet. Within the past four decades, we have witnessed the price of crude oil careen from about $3 a barrel in the early 1970s to almost $148 a barrel in the summer of 2008. Yeah, prices have fallen since then. But the experience of paying more than $4 for each gallon of gasoline had a widespread and galvanizing effect on all of us. We all know which way this trend is headed, regardless of political wrangling over the science underlying projections of global warming.

That’s why I am excited to announce our next Xconomy event in San Diego, an afternoon forum on “smart energy” set for Tuesday, June 8. What is smart energy? It begins, in the broadest and most pragmatic sense, with the realization that we can be smarter—we must be smarter—in the way we use energy. For us at Xconomy, smart energy is especially about technology innovation, and we have pulled together a group of energy visionaries, industry veterans, startup CEOs, and other experts to help explain the innovations that are already underway—and also will be needed—in every sector of our energy economy.

Along with incisive keynote talks and case studies, we have organized a discussion focused on the future power grid. That will include Terry Mohn, the chief innovation officer at Balance Energy, a micro grid energy business started in San Diego by the British aerospace contractor BAE Systems; Jan Kleissl, assistant professor of environmental engineering at UCSD; and Michael Zeller, the CEO and co-founder of San Diego-based Zementis, a startup developing software analytics for the grid. Brian Kremer, the cleantech and energy analyst at Roth Capital Partners, will moderate.

The stage for this afternoon session is the 200-seat auditorium in Atkinson Hall, home of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Calit2, where we held our successful forum on biotech innovation in December. Calit2, which is an event co-sponsor, also has graciously lent us its founding director, Internet pioneer (and San Diego Xconomist) Larry Smarr, to serve as a keynote speaker. Among other things, Smarr is a co-principal investigator of the National Science Foundation’s GreenLight project, which is intended to develop new green energy strategies for an IT industry that is estimated to consume as much energy as the airline industry.

As it turns out, many of the technological advances that are needed to make us smarter about using energy—including new capabilities in our IT infrastructure, sensors, wireless communications, data warehousing, and software analytics—represent new market opportunities for many of San Diego’s renowned innovation clusters.

So, to round out the agenda, we have scheduled case study presentations about …Next Page »

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April 22, 2010
OpenCandy Gets $5M in Round Led by Google Ventures

funding, Software, Internet

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

OpenCandy co-founder Darrius Thompson confirms in an e-mail that the San Diego-based startup, which operates a kind of online marketplace for open-source software, just raised $5 million in a series B round of venture funding, which was reported today by TechCrunch.

The new $5 million round was led by Google Ventures, and in a winking sort of way, Thompson tells me, “I think you hinted in the past that you could see us having a deep relationship with Google. Good insight!” Also participating in the round are existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and O’Reilly AlphaTech. (The company raised $3.5 million in its first round.)

As I reported previously, OpenCandy operates a Web-based network that allows a software publisher to advertise its product—and to offer it as optional download—while a user is installing another program available through OpenCandy’s website. During the installation, OpenCandy’s system suggests other software that the user might want, with the idea of helping software publishers to distribute their products and services. OpenCandy also emphasizes that its system is consumer friendly because users must actually choose to download the optional software offer. It’s not an automated process that installs additional software whether you want it or not.

So how will OpenCandy use its proceeds?

Thompson says in his e-mail: “It’s all about scaling now. As mentioned… scaling in our current market and segment and then beyond. A good portion of the proceeds would be utilized to hire great individuals that can help us scale in a way that reinforces and builds upon the great foundational culture we’ve set. Finding great talent in San Diego is a key focus for us right now.”

Thompson also says he’ll have more to say in a few weeks, so stand by.

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April 21, 2010
VCs Add $10M to Imagine Communications

Digitial Video, funding, Venture Capital

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Digital video developer Imagine Communications, a five-year-old startup based in San Diego with R&D operations in Israel, says it has raised $10 million in a Series C round of venture funding from Columbia Capital, Carmel Ventures, and Court Square Ventures—all existing investors. The company, which has now raised more than $34 million, says the new funding will be used to expand its support of customers that are multiple system operators and accelerate its commercial deployment for the MPEG-4 digital video technology standard.

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April 21, 2010
Confident Technologies Makes Its Debut in Restart of Vidoop’s Security Software

Network Security, Software, Web

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Curtis Staker tells me that Portland, OR-based Vidoop had a Web security idea that was just too good to let die. So Staker, a veteran software security executive, helped to acquire Vidoop’s assets in January, moved the software development operation to Solana Beach, CA, near San Diego, and today is launching the reincarnated business as Confident Technologies.

What’s the idea?

Instead of requiring online users to gain access to a secure website by providing a username and password, Confident Technologies has developed an alternative authentication process based on recognizing images. The company says its technology generates a unique, one-time access code each time a user seeks access to a secure website, yet Confident’s approach also is intuitive and easier for customers to remember.

Staker says the human brain has an easier time remembering images and broad categories, such as dogs, airplanes, and flowers, than remembering lengthy strings of letters and numbers—especially when many users must keep multiple user-password combinations for all the different sites they log onto. In terms of intuitive simplicity, Staker says, if you’re searching for your car in a big parking lot, is it easier for you to remember your license plate number, or what your car looks like?

image grid

In announcing its business debut today, Confident Technologies says its approach makes life easier for online users by providing a randomly generated image to protect online transactions and sensitive information. With “image-based verification,” a user selects categories of images that are easy to remember, such as cars, airplanes, and insects, the first time he or she registers with a website, such as an e-commerce or online banking site. Then, every time the user logs into that website, he or she is presented with a grid of randomly generated images—each with a randomly generated number or letter overlaid on the photo. A user simply identifies the images that fit the previously selected categories.

Confident Technologies says its authentication software can work …Next Page »

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April 21, 2010
San Diego’s Top 10 Venture Deals: Most of the Money Goes to Life Sciences

Venture Capital, Roundup, deals

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

The folks who count every leaf that falls off the money tree for venture-backed startups have graciously provided a breakout of the 10 biggest VC deals in San Diego so far this year. This list was drawn primarily from the MoneyTree Report, which is prepared by the National Venture Capital Association, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Thomson Reuters. We’ve supplemented the list with information from the archives of Xconomy San Diego—since we wrote stories about all of these deals—as well as regional data provided by Dow Jones VentureSource.

While the MoneyTree survey counted $222 million invested in 29 deals in the San Diego area, it’s still a relatively small sum for this region. I’ve got more on that, but first, here’s our list of the top 10 deals from the first quarter:

1. Tandem Diabetes Care (San Diego), $31 million, second tranche of Series C.

2. PatientSafe Solutions (San Diego) $30 million, undisclosed round.

3. Tioga Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) $18 million, undisclosed round.

4. Sotera Wireless (San Diego) $17.45 million, undisclosed round.

5. Genomatica (San Diego) $15 million, Series C.

6. Elevation Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) $14.96 million, Series A.

7. EMN8 (San Diego) $14.46 million, undisclosed round.

8. VentiRx Pharmaceuticals (San Diego and Seattle) $12.5 million, extended Series A.

9. Avaak (San Diego) $10 million, Series B.

10. AwarePoint (San Diego) $10 million, Series E.

The top 10 deals on the list account for $173.35 million, or roughly 78 percent, of the $222.5 million that venture investors sunk into 29 deals in the San Diego area during the first quarter of 2010, according to …Next Page »

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April 19, 2010
Startup Automaker Aptera Gets Back in Gear, Streaming Video Companies Vie for Attention, MeLLmo Gets Better at Mobile Graphics, & More San Diego BizTech News

Roundup, cleantech, digital media

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

The noble cause of technology innovation is a great race. Just look at Aptera Motors, which appeared to be running out of cash last fall as it laid off much of its workforce. Now—after refueling with $10 million in VC funding—the Vista, CA, carmaker revealed plans to hire 500 people for its new assembly plant in Oceanside, CA. Get that and the rest of your race updates here.

—Vista, CA-based Aptera Motors staged a comeback media briefing that dispelled worries about the startup automaker’s cash crunch—at least for now. Aptera just raised $10 million in venture funding and plans to raise more, CEO Paul Wilbur says. He also unveiled the latest version of the Aptera 2e, an all-electric, two-passenger car, which was then shipped off to compete this summer in the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

—With the increasing popularity of Internet streaming video, we saw a flurry of announcements from a variety of companies during the annual National Association of Broadcasters’ conference in Las Vegas. Qualcomm, for example, announced plans to add Web-based content and social media tools to its satellite-based mobile TV service-–and to allow Flo TV customers to record TV shows on their mobile devices for later viewing. San Diego’s VMIX said it has broadened its relationship with Cambridge, MA-based Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM) by standardizing its online video capabilities with Akamai’s HD Network.

—Upon seeing the previous news, Sorenson Media Jacob Moon reminded me by e-mail that the Carlsbad, CA-based company has shown 40 percent revenue growth for the past two quarters. He added that its Internet video technology, including …Next Page »

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April 19, 2010
Surveys Agree on Rising Tide of VC Activity, But Differ on the Ebb and Flow

Venture Capital Surveys, funding, deals

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

After running the early returns on first-quarter venture activity, we got some additional perspective from other sources over the weekend that show an ebb of VC investments in life sciences startups and a surge in energy deals. All three VC surveys—from Dow Jones, MoneyTree, and CB Insights—showed an overall rising tide compared with the first quarter of 2009, both in terms of venture dollars invested and in the number of deals nationwide. But judging the strength of the comeback is tricky, due to differences in the way each survey collects its data as well as the way each one defines venture deals.

Dow Jones VentureSource showed the most conservative increase, with $4.7 billion invested in 597 companies, representing a 12 percent rise in dollars invested and a 14 percent increase in deals over the dollars and deals that VentureSource counted a year ago.

The MoneyTree Report, which found that venture capitalists invested $4.7 billion in 681 deals, showed a 38 percent gain in dollars invested and a 7 percent rise in deal count compared to its own data from the first quarter of 2009. (The MoneyTree Report is prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, or NVCA, based on data from Thomson Reuters.)

As we reported last week, CB Insights pegged VC investments at $5.9 billion across a total of 731 deals nationwide. That represented a 51 percent gain in both dollars and deals over the same quarter of 2009 , compared with data from the New York data services firm, which was known previously as ChubbyBrain.

How is it, you may ask, that Dow Jones VentureSource counted 597 deals during the quarter, while CB Insights counted 731? Good question. Each survey claims it has the best methodology. CB says it only counts investments by VC firms; it does not count contingent funding, so-called “venture loans,” or strategic corporate funding through R&D partnerships. Dow Jones says it only counts equity financings by VC firms, corporations, diversified private equity firms, and individuals into companies that have received at least one round of venture funding. In looking at the deal lists for Seattle and San Diego, though, we noticed that the list of specific deals from Dow Jones was not as complete as the …Next Page »

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April 19, 2010
For General Corporate Purposes: A Roundup of San Diego Startups Raising Capital

Roundup, funding, Financing

Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

Startup companies have been busy raising capital over the past few weeks, which include some time when I was out of the country. In a bid to catch up, I’ve collected these recent deals to help you catch up as well.

—Ambit Biosciences disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has raised $12 million out of a targeted $13.4 million financing that includes warrants to purchase as many as 284,584 preferred Series D shares or an undetermined number of preferred stock. The San Diego biotech has focused its technology on developing anti-cancer drug treatments from an emerging class of compounds that block the cellular activities of certain enzymes known as kinases. Ambit has moved to develop its own anti-cancer compounds after developing technology to screen large numbers of kinases for the best candidate compounds to block them.

—San Diego’s Allylix says it has closed its Series C round of funding by raising a total of $9 million, which includes $6 million the company disclosed in a regulatory filing in January. The company has been developing ways of using genetically engineered yeast to make specialty chemicals known as terpenes, a basic building block for both synthetic and naturally occurring fragrances, flavors, and other products. The company received additional investment from new investor Middleland Capital as well as existing investors Blue Grass Angels, Life Science Angels, Tech Coast Angels, Pasadena Angels and Tate & Lyle Ventures.

—San Diego-based TweetPhoto, a real-time platform for sharing Twitter and other social web media, says it has secured $2.6 million in a Series A financing led by Canaan Partners, with additional investment from Anthem Venture Partners and angel investors. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate development of its core technology, a platform of open application program interfaces, or APIs, and mobile software development kits for real-time media sharing across the social web. The funding also allows the company to expand its developer relations program and to introduce new products that further strengthen its position as the preferred way for leading application developers to incorporate real-time media sharing into their applications.

—Sotera Wireless, a San Diego startup previously known as Triage Wireless, says it has raised $10.7 million as part …Next Page »

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April 16, 2010