Thank You for Joining Us for San Diego Startup Week 2025! Get the Full Recap

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Thank You for Joining Us for San Diego Startup Week 2025! Get the Full Recap

Posted: October 15, 2025

By Ella Napata

San Diego Startup Week 2025 – Innovation Rooted Locally, Impacting Globally, powered by SDSU, Arkusnexus, ASI, BQuest Foundation, City of Carlsbad, Cooley, IDA Ireland, JP Morgan, and Mintz. Our 13th annual Startup Week was a huge success, providing connections, content, and inspiration to San Diego’s rapidly growing community of innovators.

The Startup San Diego team works year-round with our volunteer board of directors to create and deliver the meaningful programming and opportunities we shared last week. We are especially thankful to our community partners, corporate, government, educational sponsors, individual donors, and family foundations for their ongoing support, which makes it all possible.

“BQuest is proud to support Startup San Diego for the role it plays in connecting founders and talent with the resources and networks they need. Their work strengthens our startup ecosystem and helps foster a more equitable, collaborative community here in San Diego.” – Andy Ballester, BQuest Foundation.

We look forward to continuing our growth here in San Diego as we all work together to make San Diego-Tijuana the best region for startups to grow and thrive!

Watch the San Diego Startup Week 2025 Recap Video

Become a Member of Startup San Diego and Get Access to All Events

Day 1 @ Carlsbad – In Our Backyard, First Steps to Growing Sustainable Success powered by the City of Carlsbad

Thank you to the City of Carlsbad, Dea Hurston New Village Arts Center, and Carlsbad Theater (Formerly known as Certainty Theater) for the continued support. For the first day of San Diego Startup Week, the theme was “In Our Backyard: First Steps to Growing Sustainable Success.”We had great sessions focused on the resources in our community, 1:1 mentorship sessions with industry experts, live podcasts, panels around AgTech, BlueTech, Cleantech, insightful conversations around growing your business, B-Corp panel, and more. The finishing keynote featured Michael Milam, Chief Operations Officer at Dr.Bronner’s, and he spoke about building sustainable brands that matter. Check out the photos, keynotes, and full recap of Day 1 of SDSW2025.

Day 2 @ Mintz HQ – San Diego Founders Showcase

We had a fantastic evening for Day 2 of San Diego Startup Week for our first-ever San Diego Founders Showcase presented by J.P. Morgan and Mintz. Over 30+ of the most promising startups in San Diego took the stage to demo and quick-pitch their startups in front of investors and Startup Week attendees! The goal for the night was to expose startups to the right investors, get them connected to talent, and find them the right support they need to grow and scale here in San Diego. Check out the photos, keynotes, and full recap of Day 2 of San Diego Startup Week.

Day 3 @ San Diego State University – Success Isn’t linear: Navigating Twists, Turns & Teammates

Day 3 of San Diego Startup Week was hosted by San Diego State University on their beautiful campus at the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center. We had over 300+ attendees join us for Day 3, with the central theme “Success Isn’t linear: Navigating Twists, Turns & Teammates.” We had a full day of workshops and talks focused on funding, legal, AI, and Co-founder matching that gave founders the fundamentals in order to grow or scale their startup.

Later, we had an inspiring keynote from Trish Clifford, Founder of Leche. She spoke on her journey as a mother turned Founder and how the frustrations from personal experiences helped create her startup she has today. We topped of the night with the Lightweight Intercollegiate Pitch Competition featuring 10 early-stage startups! Check out the full recap, keynote, Intercollegiate Pitch Competition, and Photos from Day 3 of SDSW.

Day 4 @ Arkusnexus MIND Tower in Tijuana, MX – Baja Innovation: Locally Grown, Globally Known

Day 4 of San Diego Startup Week took us south of the border to Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, at the Arkusnexus headquarters! Thank you to the Arkusnexus team for hosting us for another consecutive year. Fun fact, we started collaborating with Arkusnexus as early as 2018 for Startup Week, and we’ve hosted 1st Mondays in their office, successfully getting hundreds of innovators from San Diego and the Baja region together. This year, with the Arkusnexus MIND Tower near completion, we took over the fourth floor of their building, held startup expos, and featured two panels highlighting the innovation happening in Baja California. Check out the full recap, panels, and photos.

Day 5 @ UCSD Design and Innovation Building – Powering AI’s Exponential Growth: Robotics & Society

We had a great final day of San Diego Startup Week at UC San Diego! Huge thank you to the Alliance for Societal Impact (ASI) for being the sponsor for this event, and the UC San Diego Office of Innovation & Commercialization for hosting us again in their wonderful Design & Innovation Building, and to the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur for hosting our capstone program and closing reception at the Qualcomm Institute Auditorium. For Day 5 of San Diego Startup Week, our community enjoyed a full day focused on “Powering AI’s Exponential Growth: Robotics & Society.” Check out the full recap, photos, keynotes, and Founders Fight Club video.

Be Part of the San Diego Startup Community! Become an Official Member

Startup San Diego is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with the mission to connect, educate and inspire founders, investors, and talent here in San Diego. With a lean staff of 3 and a complete volunteer board, our programming is built with deep intention to connect our startup community to the right resources and create spaces for connection and upskilling to build a more equitable and sustainable startup community. From San Diego Startup Week, to 1st Mondays and Last Fridays, get free access to events all year long as an official Member of the Startup San Diego community!