National consulting firm Ernst & Young, also known as simply EY in the U.S., announced regional winners from San Diego who participated in its annual Entrepreneur of The Year competition.
The competition recognizes high-profile business owners from San Diego and Orange County, plus Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii.
They are creating “a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous world for future generations,” according to a news release.
San Diego’s winners include Joshua Britton of Debut, Jeffrey Janicik of Innoflight, Tom Miller of Iambic Therapeutics, Scott Struthers of Crinetics Pharmaceuticals and Ryan Tseng and Tseng of Shield AI, as well as Heather Aiu and Rachael Leina’ala Soares of the Aloha Collection in Encinitas.
According to a news release, the winners were chosen by a panel of previous award winners, CEOs and noted business leaders.
“The … award winners are exceptional business leaders fueling innovation within their industries and growth within their companies,” said EY’s Lindsay Braverman, who is the Pacific Southwest program co-director. “These entrepreneurs are shining examples of how to lead a scaling business and care for their employees, customers and communities.”
Founded in 1986 the competition has recognized more than 11,000 entrepreneurs.
The U.S. segment of the program consists of 17 regional programs announced in June.
Those winners compete for national recognition awards that will be announced in November.
Winners of other regions are being announced this week.
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San Diego-based TeachMe.To, which bills itself as the online marketplace for finding and booking local in-person sports and skills instruction, said the company’s top executive, Tyler Maloney, has now assumed the role of chief executive officer.
Nick O’Brien, who has served as the company’s CEO since 2021, will become president and chief operating officer.
Tyler, who has an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, co-founded Undercover Colors in 2014 and founded another company, Faves, in 2019.
Tyler has raised more than $25 million in venture funding in his career.
During O’Brien’s tenure at the helm, TeachMe.To said it has grown to 20 employees, serving more than 100 cities with three sports options, according to a news release.
“TeachMe.To is addressing an enormous void in the marketplace by making it simple for people who eagerly want to learn a new skill or activity, to connect with friendly local experts who are willing to teach,” Maloney said. “It’s an exciting point in the company’s trajectory and I’m looking forward to navigating the business to its next level of success.”
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San Diego FC opened its new 5,000-square-foot store, Eighteen Threads, in Mission Valley Mall this week.
According to a news release, the store offers customers an “immersive experience featuring a state-of-the-art soccer simulator, a gamers’ lounge, and a customization station in partnership with Avery Denison for personalized merchandise.”
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Coronado-based The Gondola Company celebrates its 25th anniversary this month.
The business offers several types of cruises aboard Venice-like gondolas along the many picturesque canals of the Coronado Cays.
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San Diego’s Primrose Bio, a startup focused on “developing and licensing its manufacturing technologies for nucleic acids and proteins used in therapeutics and vaccines,” said it has received “a significant equity investment” from 1315 Capital, a Philadelphia private equity firm.
According to a news release, the investment allows the business to continue with its commercial expansion of its three major products.
1315 Capital has more than $1 billion in assets under management. The firm provides growth capital to commercial-stage healthcare services, pharmaceutical & medical technology outsourcing, medical technology, and health and wellness companies.
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Avidity Biosciences, which is developing RNA therapeutics called antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates, has closed a $461 million stock offering. The company said 12.1 million shares were offered at $38 a share in the initial public offering.
According to a news release, Avidity said it intends to use the cash raised to fund clinical programs and continue the development of its AOC platform.
San Diego’s 3-year-old energy storage startup Unigrid Battery, which is developing advanced sodium-ion batteries, announced the close of a $12 Million Series A funding round.
The financing was co-led by VC firms Transition VC and Ritz Venture Capital, with participation by new investor Union Square Ventures and existing investor Foothill Ventures.
According to a news release, the company said the funding will accelerate battery production to fulfill megawatt hour-scale customer orders in the electric mobility and stationary storage markets.
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The median price of an existing San Diego home for sale rose just over 2% in May from April, and the price increased 9.6% year over year. This is according to a recent report from the California Association of Realtors.
The median price of an existing home for sale in May was nearly $1.5 million compared to $1.25 million for the same month a year ago, the CAR report said.
Overall sales were up 0.7%, the association said in a news release.
The CAR said that higher mortgage rates hampered home sales in May, although the median home price pushed past $900,000 for the second straight month to set another record high.
The statewide year-over-year increase was nearly 9%.
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Finally, this bit of depressing news for would-be homebuyers. Residential real estate web platform Zillow says that the U.S. is now short 4.5 million homes as an ongoing housing deficit worsens.
Despite a pandemic construction boom, the shortage grew to 4.5 million homes in 2022 (the latest year for which data was available), up from 4.3 million the year before, according to the new analysis from Zillow.
“This deepening housing deficit is the root cause of the housing affordability crisis,” Zillow said in a news release.
According to statistics in the analysis, San Diego’s shortfall in housing was measured at negative 93,939 in 2022.
The shortage declined a slight 0.6% in 2023, Zillow said, with just 2.6% of typical nonowner households are able to qualify for the typical mortgage needed to buy a home.
“The simple fact is there are not enough homes in this country, and that’s pushing homeownership out of reach for too many families,” said a senior economist at Zillow in the release. “The affordability crisis extends to renters as well, with cost-burdened. We are in a big hole, and it is going to take more than the status quo to dig ourselves out of it.”
Zillow said there were 8-plus million “missing households” — individuals or families living with nonrelatives — in 2022.
That is, they doubled up rather than have their own homes.
Zillow compared that number to the 3.55 million housing units for rent and sale, which points to a housing shortage of 4.5 million units.
Tom York is a Carlsbad-based independent journalist who specializes in writing about business and the economy. If you have news tips you’d like to share, send them to tom.york@gmail.com.
