Homegrown VCs a Vanishing Breed, Cardiologist Eric Topol Sees a Revolution in Wireless Health, Local Companies Raise Capital, & More San Diego BizTech News

an Ocean X Prize as a way of stimulating the development of new technologies to clean up the mass of drifting plastic in the mid Pacific Ocean. Diamandis, who is scheduled to make an appearance at the Salk Institute tomorrow evening, says it’s only it is only a matter of time before incentive prizes become as important to innovation as venture capital.

—Qualcomm says it is expanding Plaza Retail, its online apps store, to give online publishers and developers the ability to provide mobile applications and content for a variety of platforms. Beyond Qualcomm’s Brew, which maintained strict control of its applications, Retail Plaza will support apps written for Java, Flash, and BlackBerry operating systems. Retail Plaza also plans to support Android, Windows Mobile, Palm’s webOS, Symbian, and LiMo Linux.

—San Diego-based ID Analytics is launching a free online test that measures the vulnerability of individual consumers to identity theft. The service, called My ID Score, provides different advice depending on a score that ranges from 1 to 999, with high scores indicating that you are highly vulnerable. Individuals who earn a mid-range score of 500-700, the “yellow-orange” area of the scoring chart, are advised to obtain a copy of their credit report, and place a fraud alert on their credit file with the credit bureaus. People who score higher are advised to freeze their credit file.

—MeLLmo, a startup based in Del Mar, CA, has introduced a free business application that enables users to transform data from spreadsheets, tables, and other business software into interactive graphics that can be displayed on the iPhone. The tool lets users view, analyze, and share the information.

—San Diego-based Maxwell Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MXWL]]) raised $17.6 million by selling 2 million shares of its common stock through a secondary public offering. Maxwell, which makes energy storage devices called ultracapacitors, says it plans to use the proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes.

—Pure Bioscience (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PURE]]) says it has raised up to $3 million by selling its stock and warrants to institutional investors in a direct offering. The El Cajon, CA, company, which makes silver-based cleaners and disinfectants, says the net proceeds will be used for working capital.

—Breach Security, a Carlsbad, CA, startup developing network security technology, has raised $2 million of a $2.2 million convertible debt offering, according to a SEC filing.

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.