San Diego Innovation Economy Extended Gains in 2015: Connect Report

San Diego’s innovation clusters continued to grow in 2015, as local startups, funding deals, and job growth extended an economic growth spurt that began in 2013. That’s according to a report being released today by Connect, the local nonprofit group focused on technology and entrepreneurship.

The Connect Innovation Report found that 405 software, technology, and life sciences startups were created last year in San Diego County.

While that was down from the 449 local startups created in 2014, it is the third consecutive year that more than 400 startups were formed here—a pace that is well beyond the 301 startups per year average over the previous eight years.

Software startups made up nearly 63 percent (255 companies created) of all new high-tech ventures created in 2015, a trend fueled chiefly by software app development, according to the report. Another 82 startups were focused on biotech, pharmaceuticals, or medical devices—making San Diego the top county in California for the creation of new life sciences companies in 2015, the report says.

 

Innovation Companies in San Diego
Innovation Companies in San Diego (Courtesy Connect Innovation Report)

The annual study draws data from a variety of public and private sources, including the Kansas City, MO-based Kauffman Foundation, which ranked San Diego ninth on its startup activity index, based on measures of startup density and entrepreneurs in a particular region. San Diego also ranked seventh in the Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship, a new indicator that measures growth entrepreneurship in all industries.

The report on San Diego’s innovation economy also shows:

—Employment at San Diego’s high-tech and life sciences businesses has grown steadily since the great recession, from a low of 135,510 people in 2010 to 149,440 in 2015—or slightly more than 10 percent growth over five years. Employment in the local innovation sector was more robust during the recession than the rest of the San Diego’s private sector, and there were fewer job losses. Job growth last year was led by expansion in San Diego’s life sciences, information and communications technologies (ICT), and aerospace, navigation, and maritime technologies.

—The average salary in

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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.