San Diego software startup Kandji, says it has raised a $100 million Series C round of funding. The impressive amount is the third in the last 12 month, and in fact, the company has $181 million to date. That gives it a valuation of $800 million, closing in on the status of a $1 billion unicorn.
Investment firm Tiger Global led the round with participation from a number of venture capital firms, including Definition, Frontline Ventures and existing investors First Round Capital, Greycroft, Felicis Ventures, Spruce House Partnership, B Capital Group, SVB Capital and Okta Ventures.
Founder and CEO Adam Pettit says his startup gives customers an easier way to manage Apple devices across a corporate network. He told a reporter from online publication TechCrunch that the pandemic and the working at home phenomenon drove customer interest in the technology.
In fact, revenue has grown more than 700% in the last year.
Petit says that more than 1,000 businesses are using the platform.
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Another fast-growing San Diego startup, Workiz, says it raised $40 million in a recent Series C round led by VC firm Lead Edge Capital with participation from G squared and La Maison and followed by existing investors New Era, Magenta Venture Partners and Maor Investments.
The company will use the funds to scale its operations, while recruiting more talent and growing its customer base, according to a news release.
Idan Kadosh, Erez Marom, and Saar Kohanovitch started the company. All three were frustrated by the difficulties in managing and growing the business side of their locksmith company while outsourcing back-office operations.
According to a news release, most of the home service market still uses old management methods — such as pen and paper or computer spreadsheets — to handle tasks ranging from customer scheduling to invoicing and follow-ups.
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And yet a third start up has joined the fund-raising crowd.
San Diego medical platform for artificial intelligence and visualization company LifeVoxel.AI says it has raised $5 million in seed funding.
Specialists in the medical and radiology fields, plus strategic medical technology investors and family offices invested in the round.
LifeVoxel says its technologies provide instant access to interactive imaging studies and data with zero latency, rendering the results at 4K image quality.
San Diego surgeon Sean Pakbaz, who co-developed the large stroke treatment program and an advisor to the startup, said in a prepared statement, “In stroke care, time to diagnosis and treatment is the most important factor in patient outcomes.
From a clinical perspective, LifeVoxel’s patented platform will enable instant engagement with the patient and their data from anywhere, reducing delays in intervention and greatly improving their quality of life after the stroke.”
The National Science Foundation has recognized the technology as groundbreaking, awarding a grant for its advancement and adoption of Artificial Intelligence for medical imaging. The U.S. FDA has also approved the technology for use in the diagnostic interpretation of medical images.
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World Trade Center San Diego has named satellite communications and fleet management provider Blue Sky Network as the winner of its MetroConnect export accelerator program.
Blue Sky is a provides satellite-based communications and fleet management solutions for aviation, maritime, and IoT customers. It says it will use the $25,000 award to expand into Brazil and promote the launch of a new product internationally.
According to a new release, MetroConnect has helped 80 businesses to gain a net increase of $95 million in international sales, plus 543 international contracts and 22 overseas facilities. This is over a period of five years.
This international growth has coincided with 269 new hires here in San Diego.
The World Trade Center annually selects 15 export-ready businesses to receive $5,000 export grants, access to executive workshops, translation software, discounted international airfare, and a shot at winning $25,000 to aid in market expansions overseas.
The Trade Center operates as an affiliate of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. According to boilerplate at its website, the agency works to further San Diego’s global competitiveness by building an export pipeline, attracting and retaining foreign investment and increasing San Diego’s global profile abroad.
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San Diego’s high-rise sprouting East Village has landed the final spot on a list of the top 20 U.S. neighborhoods for new apartment construction.
San Diego came in at No. 20. Los Angeles took the No. 1 spot on the list. Atlanta came in No. 2.
The list was part of a study conducted by RentCafe, a nationwide apartment search website.
In a news release, a spokesperson said, “Analyzing construction data for the 50 largest U.S. cities, we uncovered that the 20 most active neighborhoods for new apartments were mostly hyper-urban, centrally located areas… highly sought after by Millennial and Gen Z renters.”
The study noted that new apartments have continued to pop up across the nation despite challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. About 1.6 million new apartments nationwide have been built over the last five years.
That include 2,699 new apartments in San Diego. East Village’s share of new apartments within the city now makes up 22% of the total market.
To prepare the report, RentCafe analyzed construction data across the 50 largest U.S. cities. The data came from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The study is based on data related to buildings containing 50 or more units built between 2017 and 2021.
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During a recent dinner of the San Diego chapter of the General Contractors of America, local contractor Pacific Building Group was honored for its work on the Portside Pier, which it calls “a complete transformation of San Diego’s flagship waterfront restaurant site.”
The $25 million project, located on North Harbor Drive, features a 42,000 square-foot, two-story building with viewing decks. The buildings rest on 48 piles driven into the bay.
Architectural features include the use of curved steel and zinc shingles on a barrel-shaped roof, and representative of an ocean wave; two stick-framed glass structures stretching 26-feet and 31-feet tall that resemble fishing baskets and a 3,000-lb., three-dimensional octopus wall sculpture.
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Finally, this item of note: fast-rising Chinese-based electric car maker Xpeng, which has an office in San Diego as well as Silicon Valley, unveiled its new G9 flagship smart SUV at the recent 19th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition.
The company said in a news release that the car is its first model developed from the ground up for both the international and Chinese markets.
Tom York is a Carlsbad-based independent journalist who specializes in writing about business and the economy. If you have news tips you’d like to share, send them to tom.york@gmail.com.
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