2 Rady Startups Named Among San Diego Startups to Watch

There’s no doubt that the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego is a leader in innovation. The school is home to two accelerators—StartR Accelerator and mystartupXX—as well as an MBA program with a focus on entrepreneurship. So, it’s no wonder that when Xconomy reviewed San Diego’s top startup companies for 2017, two of Rady’s companies made the list.

Aliaksandr Zaretski began Grolltex while he was completing his doctorate in nano-engineering at UC San Diego. The company offers a new method for making graphene at a lower cost and higher quality. Graphene is a vital material that provides high electrical conductivity, extraordinary tensile strength, flexibility, transparency and extremely light weight. It’s used mostly for making integrated circuits, sensors, biomedical membranes, photovoltaic cells, flexible displays and more. Grolltex was founded in 2015 and has raised $1 million in seed funding.

CureMatch, established in 2015, is a software company, which is developing a computer program to help oncologists choose optimal cancer drug combinations. It works by matching treatment regiments with a patient’s DNA and abnormal proteins. Razelle Kurzrock, the deputy director of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and Igor Tsigelny, a UC San Diego research professor, developed the company at UC San Diego. The initial, undisclosed funding was provided by angel investors and Analytics Ventures.

All of the startups selected by Xconomy for 2017 were first screened by the San Diego Venture Group. The finalists were selected with advice from longtime entrepreneurs, angel investors and EvoNexus selection committee members.

Generally speaking, many of the companies to make the list are at an early stage, having been founded by 2014 or later. Four of the companies also reflect the combination of San Diego’s tech and life sciences community—including CureMatch. To see a full list of all San Diego startups to watch for 2017, check out the list on Xconomy’s website.

regions: San Diego

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