Daily Business Report: Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022
UC San Diego receives nearly $1 million
to foster community entrepreneurship
Award will support university’s Talent Foundry Accelerator
By Emerson Dawson | UC San Diego
UC San Diego has been awarded nearly $1 million as part of the U.S. government’s Build To Scale initiative, a federal program promoting the growth of technology entrepreneurship in historically underserved communities.
Over the next three years, this $929,000 grant will help stimulate the development of the Talent Foundry Accelerator (TFA), an engine of entrepreneurship and business activity in the San Diego business and technology communities and beyond, creating advantages and opportunities for the ideas, innovations and leaders of the future.
UC San Diego’s Office of Innovation and Commercialization is building a campus-wide innovation platform and spurring commercialization of inventions originating at the university. There are more than 1,000 companies — operating across the United States and around the world — that use, or have used, technology created at UC San Diego. The TFA promotes small business activity in underserved communities, making it an ideal match for the Build To Scale initiative’s focus on inclusivity.
This partnership provides access to underrepresented entrepreneurs based in Central, South and East San Diego, helping small business owners, startup entrepreneurs and innovators of color launch and scale entrepreneurial endeavors
TOP PHOTO: From left, Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, Paul Roben, associate vice chancellor for innovation and commercialization, Mai Thi Nguyen, faculty director of the Design Lab, Ramesh Rao, director of the Qualcomm Institute, and executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs Elizabeth H. Simmons attend the Design and Innovation Grand Opening on Nov. 18.
San Diego’s pension system compares
favorably to systems across state, nation
A new analysis shows the City of San Diego’s pension system is in strong financial shape compared to similar systems across the state and the nation.
While the city’s pension debt is nearly $3 billion, most pension systems face similar gaps between their investment assets and long-term projections of what they will owe employees when those employees eventually retire.
The comparative analysis, which was presented to the city’s pension board Friday, shows that San Diego has been in the top half of the nation’s largest 175 pension systems for “funded ratio” every year since 2013.
And the city’s ratio, which just climbed from 70.2 percent to 74.3 percent thanks to the robust stock market, has been in the top quarter of those national pension systems several times in recent years.
San Diego’s Wilshire Quinn Capital
hits $300 million in total loan volume
San Diego-based Wilshire Quinn Capital Inc. announced that its private lending fund, the Wilshire Quinn Income Fund, has funded over $300 million in bridge loans since its inception in 2011. The announcement comes 18 months after Wilshire Quinn hit the $200 million milestone.
New loan originations made by the San Diego-based lender also increased 139 percent in 2021 compared to the previous year.
“The need for short-term financing in the commercial real estate space continues to drive our rapid growth,” said Wilshire Quinn Capital CEO Christopher M. Garcia. “As traditional lenders continue to struggle with delays and inefficiencies with their lending platforms, we continue to be a strong resource for real estate investors that require an immediate lending solution.”
Wilshire Quinn specializes in short-term bridge loans, a type of asset-based loan financing through which a borrower receives funds secured by property. Wilshire Quinn’s streamlined lending process typically results in fundings in five to seven business days.
Sunrise Management elevates Dennis Mitchell
to vice president of client strategy
San Diego-based Sunrise Management – which has specialized in the management of multifamily real estate since 1978 – has promoted Dennis Mitchell to vice president of client strategy.
Mitchell was previously a regional vice president for the company’s Portland office.
in his new role, Mitchell will now oversee Sunrise Management’s outreach and growth in all markets, including San Diego.
Mitchell has nearly 15 years of multifamily and commercial property management in both the private and public sectors.
Prior to joining Sunrise Management, he was the regional manager for Avenue5 Residential in Portland, including mixed-use developments comprised of 1,500 residential units as well as retail. In that role, he oversaw eight properties – leading client management, budgeting, market analysis, strategy development and recruitment.
Palomar Health CEO Diane Hansen appointed
Special Districts Advisory Committee for LAFCO
Palomar Health CEO Diane Hansen has been appointed to the Special Districts Advisory Committee for San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO).
San Diego LAFCO is responsible for coordinating, directing and overseeing logical and timely changes to local governmental boundaries, including things like annexation and detachment of territory, incorporation of cities, the formation of special districts, as well as the consolidation, merger and dissolution of districts and more.
Hansen’s term will run through October 2024 and will place her with 15 special district colleagues throughout San Diego County to directly advise San Diego LAFCO in fulfilling its regulatory and planning responsibilities.
The committee meets each quarter to discuss growth and development of the county.
Hansen was named CEO of the Year in 2021 by The Association of California Healthcare Districts for her leadership, efforts and achievements to positively benefit the district and community. She was also awarded 2021 Business Woman of the Year for large companies by the San Diego Business Journal.
State Department clears $88 million
MQ-9 sensor pod deal with France
GOVCON WIRE
The State Department has agreed to sell up to eight communications intelligence sensor pod suites for MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicles to France for approximately $88 million.
The potential foreign military sale will expand a previous transaction with the French government for five pod suites and related equipment worth $71 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
France also requested to purchase consumables and accessories; engineering, technical and logistics support services; ground handling equipment; publications and technical documentation support; secure communications and cryptographic devices; software and support services; as well as spares and repair parts.
BAE Systems will serve as the principal contractor while MQ-9 drone manufacturer General Atomics will perform integration work.
The French military employs its fleet of MQ-9 UAVs to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in support of coalition operations. The government does not foresee any difficulty in integrating the said equipment into the armed forces.
IRA Capital purchases Sycamore Health
Center in Vista for $11.25 million
IRA Capital has acquired a two-story, 20,282-square-foot medical office building — the Sycamore Health Center — in Vista for $11.25 million. The seller was MGNC Properties.
Built in 1990, the building is situated within a four-building medical campus and features ample parking. The property provides easy access to State Route 78, between the Interstate-5 and Interstate-15 Corridors, and is also proximate to several major hospital campuses.
Peter Curry, Mark Avilla and Bob Cowan with Cushman & Wakefield represented the seller in the transaction. Prior to sale, the firm had also recently helped to negotiate a long-term lease renewal to UCSD Health in the building.
Kurin Inc. announces agreement
with AllSpire Health GPO
Kurin Inc., the San Diego inventor and manufacturer of Kurin blood culture sets, announced the signing of a recent agreement with AllSpire Health GPO. The agreement is sole source and is for three years.
“AllSpire Health GPO and Kurin are committed to patient safety by providing innovative solutions designed to address a common source of contaminated blood cultures and in doing so, reducing overall health care costs,” said Bob Rogers, inventor and CEO of Kurin. “We are pleased to be the only product on contract with AllSpire Health GPO to help their hospitals reduce contaminated blood cultures and are already engaged with their hospitals to help impact patient care and positively impact hospitals financially.”
“AllSpire Health GPO is excited to partner with Kurin and their blood culture products. This technology will be a great benefit to our members by reducing the financial impact of false positive results,” said James Wallick, senior director, strategic sourcing at AllSpire Health GPO.
Illumina enters co-development
partnership with SomaLogic
Illumina Inc. announced it has entered into a co-development agreement with SomaLogic to bring the SomaScan Proteomics Assay onto Illumina’s current and future high throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms.
The partnership accelerates the rapidly growing high throughput sector of the proteomics market. With the scale and speed of Illumina NGS technology, researchers can more effectively and efficiently make biological connections from genetic sequence (genotype) to cellular function (phenotype) and accelerate opportunities for clinical impact.
Proteomics is a natural extension of genomics, deepening researchers’ understanding of biology and disease, yet conducting proteomics experiments at scale — with large numbers of proteins (ultra-high plexity) and large numbers of samples (ultra-high throughput) — was previously challenging.
Daasity raises $15 million in Series A funding
Daasity, the eCommerce analytics and data platform used by consumer product brands, announced it has raised $15 million in Series A funding, led by existing lead investor VMG Catalyst.
Funding will be used to accelerate data accessibility and brands’ability to enrich their marketing channels with more personalized customer data.
“We’re proud that leading investors in the consumer product brand space continue to partner and back us,” said Dan LeBlanc, CEO of Daasity. “Our 300 percent growth in under a year proves how scattered data is holding brands back from making urgent, critical business decisions. This capital will accelerate our vision of making actionable data accessible to all ecommerce brands.”
Launch Factory raises $6 million
to fund operations during 2022
Launch Factory, a San Diego-based venture studio, raised $6 million to fund its operations for 2022. This round of funding aims to launch new computer vision AI companies.
Led by Brad Chisum, CEO, James Hereford, and Kimberly Davis King, Launch Factory is a venture studio which, with this fund, will be accelerating the use of Computer Vision AI in real-world applications.
The studio will be leveraging IP from an emerging leader in the computer vision AI space. This technology processes videos faster than GPU-based solutions and provides a superior output at significantly lower costs.
In the coming weeks, Launch Factory will select the areas that new companies will focus on. Promising markets includes automotive self-driving, AI security processing, real time sports analytics and video search indexing.
