Top Tech Startups in San Diego, CA in 2027

Hey Social Good is a social impact tech company working to revolutionize social good data for people, planet, and profit. We are a data analytics platform using expert domain knowledge and machine learning to guide, assess, and rapidly verify the sustainable and socially responsible practices of businesses. We hold a single conviction: with the right tools, people will make small shifts to improve people, community & planet.

Permission.io's mission is to end the exploitative advertising model that has built Web 2.0 and to give individuals back ownership of their data. The company has created the ASK token as a digital reward to enable individuals to securely grant permission and monetize their data across the web. Advertisers reward consumers with ASK for interacting with their brands and content, building loyalty and trust. Permission.io evolved from Algebraix Data, a deep tech company that developed fundamental technology in data integration and analytics. See crunchbase.com/organization/algebraix-data.

Thor’s Hall is building a performance-based network for creators, publishers, marketers and online communities. We help partners monetize their audiences without having to build the technical infrastructure themselves. Thor’s Hall handles dedicated landing pages, campaign tracking, reporting and partner management while our partners focus on bringing quality traffic through the channels they already understand. Our model is simple: if a partnership generates revenue, everyone involved shares in the results. We currently focus on online gaming and iGaming, with the goal of building a wider network of creators, publishers and growth partners across multiple markets. We are still early, which means the people joining now have the opportunity to help shape how Thor’s Hall grows, test new acquisition strategies and potentially develop long-term partnerships as the network expands.

Saddle Up AI is a digital marketing agency built for the trades. We work exclusively with MEP contractors (plumbing, HVAC, and electrical companies) and help them turn online searches into booked calls. What we do: - AI-built websites designed to turn visitors into calls - Google Ads and Local Services Ads (LSA) - Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads - SEO and local search visibility Contractors are great at what they do, but most don't have time to run their own marketing. We handle it end to end so owners can focus on running jobs while we keep the phone ringing. We're a remote team and we're growing. If you like working with small business owners, selling real results, and getting rewarded for performance, we'd love to hear from you.

Pathr is building the connected intelligence layer for boating. Our marine navigation app is live on iOS and Android, helping boaters plan safer routes, navigate waterways, monitor their vessels, and make better decisions on the water. We're also developing HelmLink, our hardware platform that connects directly to a boat's NMEA 2000 network and brings real-time vessel data into Pathr. Together, the app and HelmLink create a growing marine data network. We're building toward tools for recreational boaters, commercial operators, fleets, marinas, and other businesses that need better visibility into what's happening on the water. We're a small, early-stage team solving difficult problems across navigation, geospatial data, routing, hardware, mobile software, and marine intelligence. That means people joining Pathr early have the opportunity to own meaningful parts of the product and help shape the company from the ground up. If you're excited by boats, maps, connected hardware, real-world data, or building ambitious products at the earliest stage, we'd love to hear from you.

At SiegePal, we're building an AI-powered cybersecurity platform that helps businesses identify vulnerabilities, understand security risks, and protect their applications and cloud infrastructure more efficiently. Our platform brings together specialized AI agents that work alongside security professionals to automate complex cybersecurity tasks, from reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning to penetration testing, threat analysis, and compliance reporting. By integrating existing security tools with large language models (LLMs), we aim to reduce repetitive manual work and make advanced security capabilities more accessible. **The hard problems we're solving:** - **AI agent orchestration:** Building a system where multiple specialized AI agents can collaborate, share context, and execute complex security workflows reliably. - **Security automation:** Turning fragmented security tools and manual processes into coordinated workflows that identify, prioritize, and help remediate vulnerabilities. - **Cloud security at scale:** Integrating with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to assess infrastructure, detect misconfigurations, and manage security risks across complex environments. - **Safe AI execution:** Giving AI agents the ability to interact with real systems while maintaining strict permissions, isolation, auditability, and human oversight. - **Actionable security intelligence:** Transforming large volumes of technical findings into clear recommendations that engineering teams can act on. Alongside our platform development, we deliver cybersecurity and AI engineering services for businesses operating in cloud and regulated environments. We're a small, engineering-driven team working at the intersection of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and cloud infrastructure. Our developers tackle real technical challenges, experiment with emerging technologies, and have the opportunity to shape a product from its early stages.

Grovyn is a product-focused software engineering company that works closely with startups and growing product teams to build reliable, high-quality software. We partner with founders and engineering leaders when execution matters most. Our work typically sits at the core of a product, whether that is building new features, scaling platforms, improving performance, or helping teams move faster without compromising on quality. Grovyn was built with a simple belief that strong engineering and clear ownership create better products. We focus on deep collaboration, practical decision-making, and long-term thinking rather than handoffs or heavy process. Our team brings hands-on experience across modern web platforms, APIs, mobile applications, and real-time systems. We integrate closely with internal teams and operate as an extension of the product organization, not as an external vendor. As a founder-led company, we stay involved at every stage of the work. We value trust, clarity, and accountability, and we care deeply about the outcomes we help our partners achieve. We work with teams that value craftsmanship, speed, and ownership, and we build software that is meant to last.

harpoon enables anyone creating a software project to dynamically generate software infrastructure and deploy it to the cloud provider of their choice without writing any code in 10 minutes or less.

Seatrec’s patented energy harvesting solutions redefine the boundaries of ocean research. By tackling power challenges head-on, we open up unprecedented options for data acquisition and ocean profiling. Introducing Seatrec’s infiniTE™ float – the first-of-its-kind platform with plug-and-play sensors, powered by clean, renewable energy to solve the power limitation issues of legacy floats. The platform vertically integrates a wide range of sensors (previously impossible to mount on a float because of power limitations) with a pioneering energy harvesting system that generates electricity from the ocean’s temperature differences. Seatrec floats can profile up to 3x per day, at a depth of up to 1000 meters compared to legacy floats that profile once every 10 days. These next-generation floats can be launched from sailboats with no carbon footprint and are built for endurance, facilitating long-term, data-gathering deployments.