Ronald Bolden Jr

What a great example of #airporttech! I like the "...friendly nudge by an officer." Excellent use case of curb management. Thank you Andrew K Kirk and Automotus for your partnership. INRIX #airports #govtech

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Here’s a simple SEO exercise that reveals a lot about your visibility: Search Google for what makes your business special — like “EV home charging installation San Mateo,” “realtor with free staging in San Carlos,” or “accounting for tech-related stock options Bay Area.” If your site doesn’t show up, check your content. Those phrases probably don’t exist there — and that’s why search engines can’t connect you with the people who need you most. Even the best service in the world can’t help anyone if no one can find it. #SEO #SmallBusiness #MarketingStrategy #BayAreaBusiness #GrowthMindset

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Some great thoughts from my friend Neal Bloom🎩 about the critical importance of Founders in the starting and building of companies, and a startup ecosystem in a community. Sometimes we lose sight of this important fact. Service providers, non-profits, Angel investor, and venture capitalists are here to service the startup companies, and they are anchored by founders. He references a great book written by Brad Feld, “Startup Communities”. For those that don’t know, Brad is an entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson. #sandiego #startups #venturecapital

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When most people hear "solid-state," they think storage. But in Santa Clara, xMEMS Labs just gave that term new resonance, literally. The company just raised $21M in Series D funding led by Boardman Bay Capital Management, with Cloudview Capital, CDIB-TEN Capital, Harbinger Ventures, Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, and other strategic investors tuning in. This isn't another round of capital, it's an #amplifier for a company turning silicon into a new language of #sound and #cooling for the AI era. Founded in 2018 by Joseph Jiang and Jemm Liang, xMEMS spun out of piezoelectric R&D at TSMC and turned what was once wafer-level theory into commercial hardware. Joseph Jiang, a veteran of Knowles, Fortemedia, and InvenSense, leads with precision and swagger, while Jemm Liang, who built Ultrachip from the ground up, drives the engineering with surgical focus. Co-Founder & CLO Wei-Fu Hsu, the former MediaTek exec and IP expert, ensures xMEMS' innovation is as protected as it is disruptive. Their play? A monolithic MEMS platform that transforms voltage into vibration, silicon into sound. Unlike legacy coil speakers and fans, xMEMS tech doesn't move parts, it moves markets. Over 500K MEMS speakers shipped in 1H'24, backed by >250 global patents. The Cypress & Sycamore lines redefine what "small" can do: 1mm-thin, full-range, and capable of sub-bass response once thought impossible in earbuds. Their XMC-2400 µCooling chip, 1mm-thin, fan-on-a-chip, inaudible, moves 39cc/sec of air at just 30mW. That's not cooling, that's choreography at a molecular level. Dr. Chester Hwang, named CTO on Oct 15, 2025, joins to push that curve further. Alongside veterans Mike Housholder (VP Marketing & Biz Dev), Jim Wargnier (VP N.A. & EU Sales), James Lee (VP & Korea GM), Steven P. Bentley (VP Sales), and Martin Lim (VP MEMS Tech), xMEMS is scaling at semiconductor speed. They're already in BleeqUp's AI sports glasses and teamed with Dongguan Rayking Electronics for TWS modules. When OEMs talk "next-gen," they're talking xMEMS-level integration. For investors like Boardman Bay's Will Graves, this isn't just sound engineering, it's signal intelligence. With AI pushing devices thinner, faster, and hotter, xMEMS' piezoMEMS platform sits at the intersection of #acoustics and #thermals, where every millimeter matters. Backing them is a bet that the next wave of #sensorytech won't just compute, it'll feel alive. So what's next? Scaling production, expanding capacity, and embedding xMEMS' silicon pulse into everything from earbuds to AI #datacenters. In a world chasing speed, silence, and fidelity, xMEMS isn't following the beat, they're building the frequency the future will hum to. #Startups #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #SeriesD #AI #Sound #SoundEngineering #Semiconductors #Data #DataDriven #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.

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San Diego startups are returning $7 for every VC dollar raised. That’s better than NYC, LA, and Austin. Fred Grier and I unpack a new data set ranking cities by return - not hype by Nate Bek of Ascend Listen in on the latest episode of This Week in San Diego Tech: https://lnkd.in/gqNMtH_t

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Before we start, it is important to know about the history of the company. Silvaco’s journey from a family-owned business to a Nasdaq-listed public company is a story of balancing legacy with professional management. With over 40 years of history, Silvaco started in a small office in Santa Clara, developing early EDA tools that helps create computer chips. About a decade ago, the 2nd generation of the family came in with a bold vision to expand globally. Going public became a key milestone in this vision of growth. The Transition to Professional Leadership One of the first steps was hiring key top executives, starting from a professional CEO, and then followed by upgrading the CTO and CFO functions. But this raises a question: “what happens when family values and professional strategies don’t align?” The answer is - it’s NOT easy! This transition came with many new and unforeseen challenges. I still remember family members and professional executives didn’t always agree on business directions. It took time, many many many discussions and debates, and iterations to build the trust needed to allow the management team to run the day-to-day business effectively. Letting Go of Operational Control For the family members, stepping back from operational control was not easy too, this means entrusting the company’s legacy to external professionals. As a board member, I needed to actively contributed to shaping the governance structure and aligning the vision between family and the professionals. Looking Ahead Creating a great company starts from within. We needed to build a new vision and getting outside of the comfort zone. Forming a new professional management team was the first step and next will be forming a robust governance framework that serves as the foundation for business growth, attracting investors and building customer trust. More about that in the next post. What do you think is the biggest challenge for a family business going public? I’d love to hear your thoughts. #CorporateGovernance #BoardLeadership #Nasdaq #Journey #INED #DirectorRoles #IPO #GoingPublic

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JKI engineer Henry Sillin will be presenting on his expertise in the area of systems engineering and control software for high-risk hardware.

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