Report Shows San Diego’s Innovation Economy Gaining Strength Through June

a CEO confidence index of 83.5, marking a 20 percent decline from 105.2 confidence level seen in the first quarter—and the index’s lowest level in two years.

Connect’s report typically lags by a full quarter because of the time required to gather and assemble economic data from a variety of sources. Here are some other highlights:

—Almost 6,150 companies comprise San Diego’s tech sector, which accounted for an estimated 139,400 jobs during the second quarter and more than $3.5 billion in total payroll. Tech startups created 160 new jobs.

—Life sciences, which includes biotech, pharma, biomedical devices, and health IT companies, had the largest workforce during the second quarter, with an estimated 28,600 jobs. San Diego’s communications equipment manufacturing sector ranked second, with 28,400 jobs. Software placed third with about 27,100 jobs.

—Federal research grants to more than 80 research institutes and companies in the San Diego area totaled $348 million during the second quarter, down 9 percent from $383 million in the same quarter last year and down about 2 percent from $356 million in the preceding quarter.

—Researchers counted 62 corporate merger and acquisition deals targeting San Diego companies during the quarter, accounting for total value of $1.1 billion. That was more than triple the total value of $317 million from 40 M&A deals in the same quarter last year. But it wasn’t even half of the $2.3 billion generated by 47 deals during the first quarter of 2011.

—Innovators in the San Diego area filed 1,725 patent applications, an historic high, and a 12 percent rise from the 1,541 patents filed during the first quarter, according to the patent group at the Procopio, Cory law firm. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted 1,037 patents to San Diego innovators, down 7 percent from the 1,115 granted in the previous quarter.

—As we’ve reported previously, the MoneyTree Report shows that venture capitalists invested $198 million in 29 deals in the San Diego region during the second quarter of 2011, a 25 percent increase compared to the previous quarter, but a decline from the $216 million VCs invested in 30 local companies during the same quarter last year. The noteworthy aspect with the venture capital report is that San Diego’s ranking among the U.S.  regions (based on the amount of total venture capital invested) slipped from eighth to eleventh during the second quarter. It wasn’t that long ago that San Diego regularly placed third—behind Silicon Valley and Boston.

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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.