San Diego’s EvoNexus Incubator Selects First Gaggle of Fledgling Startups

EvoNexus, the non-profit incubator launched in San Diego three months ago, has selected its inaugural group of new technology companies to be hatched.

Cathy Pucher, the incubator’s executive director, tells me the first clutch of startups getting support from EvoNexus were culled from about 45 applicants. The contenders came from a surprisingly diverse number of industries, including software, cleantech, wireless health, semiconductor, communications, and other technologies. “We really didn’t know how many applications or what kind of applications we would get,” Pucher says. Most of the applications came from “brand new” startups, she adds, including several started by individuals who had taken early retirement offers or had been laid off in the recession.

EvoNexus, which plans to move by the end of this month into commercial office space recently vacated by San Diego-based Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LEAP]]), also has begun reviewing its second round of applications. (More on that below). Pucher says the three startups are:

—San Diego-based Medipacs is commercializing non-mechanical intravenous infusion technology that uses polymer pumps instead of electric motors and pump mechanisms. The company is initially targeting delivery of pain medications and already has developed wearable, programmable, and disposable infusion technology. It is looking for wireless industry expertise to add remote monitoring capabilities (and expand into the wireless health market).

CEO Mark McWilliams has extensive experience in the medical devices industry and in early stage companies. He has worked previously at Beckman Coulter, Q3DM, and Baxter Healthcare.

—IO Semiconductor is a fabless semiconductor startup that is focused on applying new technologies to RF (radio frequency) devices for the cellular industry. “They don’t give out a lot of detail about what they’re doing because

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

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.