Post-IPO Active Network Shows Profit, SmartDrive Raises $10M, Human Engines Goes Commercial, & More San Diego BizTech News

Software-as-a-service is driving strong growth at two San Diego Web companies, and several other tech companies raised cash last week. We’ve got the highlight reel, and our play-by-play analysis begins now.

—After its May 25 IPO, San Diego’s Active Network (NYSE: [[ticker:ACTV]]) reported its first quarterly financial results, showing a $5.5 million profit on $99 million in revenue for the second quarter ended June 30. Active Network CEO Dave Alberga says the Web-based registration services and media company is now targeting an estimated $10 billion market that was impossible to address before the rise of software-as-a-service.

—Another San Diego software-as-a-service company, ServiceNow, opened a new office in San Jose, saying it was a “long overdue debut” for the fast-growing company in Silicon Valley. ServiceNow plans to hire 50 people in San Jose by the end of the year, and its global workforce will hit more than 500 by the end of September.

—San Diego’s SmartDrive Systems raised $10.1 million from investors. Targeting fleet operators, SmartDrive provides a SmartRecorder device mounted above the dashboard to record driving behavior and determine what happened in accidents.

—San Diego’s KidZui announced the debut of Zui.com, a search engine for kids. KidZui also extended its $4 million Series C round with an additional $2 million led by San Diego-based Mission Ventures. CEO Cliff Boro told me the company plans to use the cash for general corporate purposes.

—Qualcomm reached the halfway point in its Qualcomm Wireless Fitness Challenge. After four weeks, the 32 participants have burned a total of 1.9 million calories and lost a total of 48.5 pounds. Qualcomm hopes to eventually roll out a wireless health program to other companies.

—Google Ventures provided the lead funding in a $500,000 seed round for Nettle, a 10-month-old San Diego startup that is still in stealth mode with technology described

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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.