How 'Innovation Day' is Helping San Diego Become a Top Destination for Startups
San Diego regularly ranks in the top 10 for attracting venture capital funding.
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In August, Mike Krenn, president and chief executive at Connect, met me at The Mission Bay Beach Club, a coffee shop in the heart of San Diego, where he provided me with an exclusive update on the long-standing non-profit goal for San Diego.
Mr. Krenn, and his 12-person team have been hard at work this summer working to organize San Diego’s most anticipated event of the year, with a goal to showcase America’s Finest City’s up-and-coming companies at the Petco Park stadium.
For Connect, Innovation Day is a chance to highlight the city’s progress as a startup hub, and is an opportunity to show off the city’s growing tech ecosystem, which saw 119 venture deals for a total of $4.7 billion in the first three quarters of the year.
It has directly helped local companies raise nearly $1 billion in Series A funding in the last six years, to date. The organization has been instrumental in connecting venture capital firms to San Diego-based startups at the earliest of stages.
“Name a regional event, that encompasses both tech and life sciences, that is put on by a nonprofit, that is driven by a vision of making its community better,” said Krenn. “At this scale — it doesn’t exist.”
Top 5 Venture Capital Market
A growing hub for consumer companies like Vuori Clothing, defense-tech startups including Shield AI, and software companies Clickup, Platform Science, Flock Freight — San Diego has come a long way from being the city known as the “surf slackers,” Krenn said.
“Ten years ago … we were perceived as surf slackers,” he said. “Investors wanted companies to relocate. Our students migrated north upon graduation. The work we did in the past produced. We’re now the 5th largest venture market and we’re a destination for innovators.”
In 2024, San Diego is home to thousands of fledgling companies, and the region regularly ranks between fifth and seventh globally in attracting venture capital, according to Carta data. The city’s life science sector has become a wellspring of jobs paying more than $150,000 on average, a major part of the local economy.
While having fewer venture firms based locally, the San Diego area has managed to “out-raise” cities such as Seattle, Austin and Miami from a venture capital perspective.
San Diego is no longer a non-existent tech hub showing signs of promise, it has become one of strongest magnets for serial entrepreneurs, senior executives who are nearing retirement, as well as a popular relocation spot for bay area founders.
Showcasing San Diego
Innovation Day has a much less buzzy appeal than a16z’s Tech Week — held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York — which often draws “tens of thousands” across hundreds of startup-focused events, mixers and invite-only parties.
Part of that is by design, Krenn who is a bit anti-Silicon Valley, noted: “It’s time to stop referencing Silicon Valley like it’s some utopia,” he said. “We can build better.”
In 2023, Los Angeles Tech Week consisted of more than 300 panels and parties. Today, the VC firm has a calendar of over 850-plus events across those three cities in 2024, Katia Ameri, partner at Andreessen Horowitz announced on social media.
“The idea is to build a better version of SXSW,” said Krenn. “We are growing year-over-year in life science, tech, defense, venture capital, Mexico — the list goes on. Our goal is to attract people from around the globe, to immerse them in the San Diego scene, and beyond.”
Connecting Top VCs to San Diego
Connect’s official tagline is to “Build the best innovation ecosystem on the planet” (touting that they have been at the center of the city’s tech scene for more than three decades) Despite some past skepticism — and newer groups forming to capitalize from the city’s recent growth — the large majority of SD’s startup community have shared their appreciation for the work Connect.
For example, its Cool Companies event brings hundreds of venture capitalists into the region and historically has helped move the needle for Series A and early-stage companies seeking to raise capital to scale their businesses.
“San Diego has a unique reputation as a collaborative community — we need to deliver on that reputation,” said Krenn. As we get bigger, and become more successful as a region, we get more dispersed.”
“Connect is a tiny nonprofit, moving mountains. If we can work together, collaboratively, as individual companies and a region that truly cares about community, and build something better for our next generation — we have a unique opportunity to create something truly special.”
What to Expect This Year
San Diego’s Innovation Day is less than seven days away from its 3rd annual event.
From networking, to startup pitch competitions, to panel discussions, to investor match-making — you can expect seeing thousands of people from different industries.
Last year’s event saw more than 3,500 people in attendance. “We expect similar numbers this year,” Krenn said. “We are talking to various regional leaders about a new location next year, across multiple days.”
Local investors including NuFund Venture Group, Correlation Ventures, and Anzu Partners, will be in attendance, among 100-plus other tech and life science venture firms who are not based in the region but are now paying increasingly “closer attention” to SD’s startup scene then they have in the past, according to Krenn.
While bigger named technology conferences typically cost thousands of dollars, Innovation Day costs roughly $50 to attend, and it also provides discount pricing for students and military-affiliated attendees. The one-day event takes place on Tuesday Sept. 24 from 2pm to about 8pm.
“This is bigger than Connect,” said Krenn. “We want other organizations to work together with us. We are building something for San Diego, by San Diego, that positions as a leading global innovation hub. To attract market leading individuals from countries around the world.”