On the western shore of San Francisco Bay sits South San Francisco, widely regarded as the “birthplace of biotechnology.” Within the giant amalgamation of tech companies that make up this city, over 200 of them are dedicated to biotechnology, making it the largest cluster of biotech organizations in the world. As a city serious about its science, South San Francisco has become the first of its kind to actively plan for biotech growth, investing over $300 million toward overall improvement. And with its close proximity to top-ranked universities like Stanford, this city’s tech presence is only going to get bigger.
While biotech dominates South San Francisco’s tech community, the city still boasts other tech companies from leading industries. While one company is pioneering the eco-friendly farming movement, another is breaking ground on developing transformative therapies for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. For those eager to brush up on their Bay Area tech knowledge, look no further than these South San Francisco tech companies spearheading some of the world’s most promising innovations.
South San Francisco Tech Companies To Know
- Calico Life Sciences
- Capgemini
- Freenome
- Genetech
- Plenty
- PowerTest
- Second Genome
- Zipline
Founded: 2013
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Calico Life Sciences is a research and development company that uses advanced technologies to increase an understanding of biology. With experts in biology, genetics, medicine, machine learning and more, the company focuses on understanding the basic biology of aging and interventions for serious age-related diseases. Calico’s mission is to devise interventions that allow people to live longer and healthier lives.
Who they work with: Academic institutions and biotech companies.
Location: South San Francisco
Founded: 2014
Focus: Drones + logistics
What they do: Zipline has invented innovative drone technology that delivers medication and healthcare supplies to those in immediate need faster than ever. The company produces fixed-wing drones that are capable of circling the equivalent of the Earth’s equator in just 2.5 days, allowing Zipline to extend its reach from the United States to Rwanda and beyond.
Who they work with: Pharmacies + healthcare companies
Founded: 1967
Focus: Manufacturing, Food + Beverage, Automotive, Government, Telecommunication, Media + Entertainment, Banking, Healthcare
What they do: Capgemini is dedicated to addressing the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities throughout cloud, digital and platforms. Specializing in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, the company enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through a variety of services like cloud, cybersecurity, intelligent automation, applied innovation and artificial intelligence. Capgemini works with clients from a wide range of industries including automotive, consumer products, government, media and entertainment, healthcare and retail.
Who they work with: Cooper Standard, Great Lakes Cheese, LP Building Solutions, Cognex, Scottish Water and Project FARM.
Founded: 1998
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Cytokinetics is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company developing small-molecule drug candidates engineered to impact muscle function and contractility. The company is dedicated to discovering, developing and commercializing muscle activators and muscle inhibitors as potential treatments for debilitating diseases, which cause compromised and declining muscle performance.
Who they work with: Physicians and patients.
Founded: 2010
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Emerald Cloud Lab is committed to empowering scientists to transcend the laboratory, creating a space where scientific ideas have a more direct route to realization. The company’s Command Center provides scientists with a single, comprehensive space for their entire workflow, compiling data into a powerful knowledge graph while providing tools to plot, analyze and visualize the results. Thus, Emerald gives scientists the ability to orchestrate experiments at a computer from anywhere in the world.
Who they work with: Scientists
Founded: 1999
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Fluidigm Corporation is a biotech company dedicated to helping clients reveal meaningful insights in health and disease, identify actionable markers and accelerate the development of more effective therapies. With a focus on cancer, immunology and immunotherapy, the company helps researchers uncover important disease pathways, find new molecular biomarkers and profile important cell populations down to single cell resolution. Fluidigm specializes in a variety of areas including imaging mass cytometry, gene expression and genomics.
Who they work with: Laboratories within academic, government, pharmaceutical, biotech, plant and animal research fields.
Founded: 2014
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Freenome is a biotech company committed to granting people with the tools they need to detect, treat and ultimately prevent diseases. Through the use of advanced machine learning, the company is developing simple blood tests to detect early-stage cancer and create more effective treatments.
Who they work with: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, UC San Diego Health System, Qiagen, UCSF and Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Founded: 1976
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Genentech is a biotech company committed to discovering and developing medicines for people with life-threatening diseases. The company works with scientists, patients and medical professionals to pioneer medical breakthroughs. Genentech focuses on a wide range of medical topics including hemophilia, multiple sclerosis, cancer immunotherapy, digestive health, neuroscience, respiratory health and infectious disease.
Who they work with: Scientists, patients and medical professionals.
Founded: 2013
Focus: Renewables + Environment
What they do: Plenty boasts a team of indoor vertical farmers dedicated to delivering fresh, clean produce to communities everywhere in an eco-friendly fashion. The company uses crop science, artificial intelligence, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) to redefine how produce is grown. Plenty’s local vertical farms use 99 percent less water than conventional fields and produce zero fertilizer runoff, substantially reducing emissions in the process.
Who they work with: Growers, engineers and scientists.
Founded: 1996
Focus: Software
What they do: PowerTest offers a variety of software services, which help companies manage the risks associated with developing and deploying complex systems. Their services include software quality assurance, software performance testing, application performance management and application security testing. The company also provides software testing tools, security testing tools and application performance management tools. PowerTest’s partners include Fortify Software, HP Software and Micro Focus.
Who they work with: Companies that use various types of software.
Founded: 2012
Focus: Big Data, Financial Services, E-commerce, Aerospace + Defense, Software, Biotech
What they do: Reduxio is dedicated to extending its architecture and optimizing it to enable the next wave of agile, flexible and hybrid cloud IT infrastructure. The company’s microservices-based cloud storage and data platform are designed to accompany the next generation of applications, simplify IT workflows and reduce the overall cost of IT. Reduxio provides instant data mobility, allowing data and applications to be seamlessly moved across infrastructure, while their microservices architecture supports any range of application or business requirements.
Who they work with: Hedge funds and private equity firms, as well as organizations involved with e-commerce, aerospace and defense, enterprise software development and biotech.
Founded: 2009
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Second Genome specializes in microbiome science, working on novel therapies for serious diseases while making breakthroughs in multiple fields of research. The company’s Microbiome Discovery Platform integrates computational science and machine learning with human disease biology to redefine diseases and generate libraries of compounds.
Who they work with: Bayer, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Center, Microbiome Institute at University College Cork, Ireland and Stanford University School of Medicine.
Founded: 2008
Focus: Biotech
What they do: Veracyte is a genomics diagnostics company that seeks to improve clinical outcomes for patients by resolving inconclusive results from traditional diagnostics methods. Using genomic technology and machine learning, the company’s tests enable a significantly more confident diagnosis in a variety of diseases, such as lung cancer and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Veracyte translates genomic data into meaningful information, while their proprietary machine learning algorithms interpret this data using patient samples that represent the broad spectrum of disease that our genomic tests may likely encounter in a clinical setting.
Who they work with: Physicians and patients.
Founded: 2015
Focus: Medical Devices
What they do: Verily Life Sciences creates tools and devices to collect, organize and activate health data, creating interventions to prevent and manage disease. Using deep hardware, software, scientific and healthcare expertise, the company enables faster development, meaningful advances and deployment at scale. Verily has worked with a variety of companies to develop tools and platforms such as scalable solutions for monitoring and measuring atrial fibrillation and the world’s first all-in-one connected care system for 24/7 infant monitoring.
Who they work with: Organizations associated with life sciences, medical devices and government.
Founded: 2004
Focus: Video Games
What they do: Launched over a decade ago, Roblox has recently gained great popularity. Its gaming platform connects its over 65 million users to 3D experiences. Developers upload games on its social-network-like platform, where users can play them and communicate through chats. The company has its hybrid headquarters in San Mateo.
Who they work with: Software Developers and Gaming Engineers
