Plug and Play San Diego Selects Five Companies for Startup Camp

Plug and Play San Diego logo used with permission

It was standing room only as Plug and Play San Diego selected five seed-stage tech companies to participate in its startup accelerator program, following presentations by 17 finalists yesterday at the Co-Merge shared workspace in downtown San Diego.

The afternoon session represented Plug and Play’s third draft of companies in a San Diego-based selection process that attracted a record 92 entries, including startups from Denver, CO, and Tijuana, Mexico. Organizers said the size and diversity of the field was encouraging, and reflects a noticeable increase in early stage startup activity among tech companies in San Diego. About 75 startup founders and supporters filled the conference room to watch the presentations.

“We’re not in diapers anymore,” said Robert Reyes, who leads Startup Circle in San Diego and helped establish the Plug and Play’s Startup Camp program here. “We’re getting great feedback on the quality of the companies that we’re getting. The Plug and Play people are saying it’s just ten times better.”

A year ago, when the San Diego satellite program selected its first group of local startups, “We didn’t have a point of reference, and now we do,” investor Alex Roudi said.


BrightScope CEO Mike Alfred, who was among the judges who listened to the three-minute presentations, said the number and diversity of companies applying for Plug and Play San Diego was the best he’s seen out of four similar events he’s attended in San Diego. “This group of companies that presented here today are by far the strongest, and the quality of companies is better,” Alfred said. “I think a big part of it is that there is real money behind [the program].”

In exchange for a small equity stake in their companies, the Sunnyvale, CA-based Plug and Play Tech Center provides $25,000 in financing for companies that enroll in the accelerator. Companies begin the

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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.