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Achates Power Seems to Be On the Right Road for Growth

Achates Power Inc., the Sorrento Valley company working on a fuel-efficient diesel engine design, said early this month that it added a fifth-leading global manufacturer to its client list. A nondisclosure agreement prevents Achates from naming the client, a spokesman said.

Achates Power also said that its opposed-piston diesel engine will reach production within the decade.

In a company update issued in early December, Achates Power said revenue is up 300 percent in 2014 and that the company has grown to 75 employees. Its engine projects range in size from 45 horsepower to more than 5,000 horsepower, and it has clients in five areas: passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles, military vehicles and marine/stationary power. The company has publicly said it works with the U.S. Army and Fairbanks Morse Engine, a unit of EnPro Industries Inc.

The 10-year-old company has a sizable intellectual property portfolio. David Johnson is CEO.

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Equity in EdgeWave: San Diego-based EdgeWave Inc., which makes cyber security software, said in mid-December that three investors contributed a total of $2 million more to the company’s series A funding round. EdgeWave is pulling together funds to expand the company.

Some $1.2 million came from San Diego’s TVC Capital. A San Francisco Bay Area firm specializing in alternative assets, Northgate, contributed $500,000. Bill Baumel and partners of RWI Ventures contributed $300,000. The latter are longtime EdgeWave investors.

With the new funding round, TVC Capital’s total preferred equity investment in EdgeWave is $7.2 million. On top of the series A Preferred Shares, TVC purchased 3 million common shares through a tender offer.

EdgeWave said it received $8 million in equity funding during 2014. Dave Maquera is CEO. Some longtime readers may remember the company by its old name, St. Bernard Software Inc.

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Workout Mix Has Heart: Downtown-based Rock My World has trotted out a new feature on its RockMyRun music app for iPhones — one that plays tunes in synch with a listener’s heartbeat.

The feature, called myBeat Heart, takes its cues regarding tempo from a runner’s smart watch or other wearable heart rate devices. The devices communicate via Bluetooth short-range radio signals.

The RockMyRun app offers music curated by a disc jockey; the business offers free and paid versions. The earlier version, which plays music in time with one’s strides, is available for iOS and Android devices.

The company said that it is the first to synch music with a person’s heart rate, noting that the feature is appropriate for cycling, resistance training and other sports that don’t have a cadence.

The heart rate feature will be available soon on the Android version of the software, a publicist said.

Rock My World is a tenant in the pro bono EvoNexus incubator. Its CEO is Adam Riggs-Zeigen, a Valhalla High School graduate whose career path included stints at Qualcomm Inc. and as a disc jockey at Indonesian dance clubs.

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A Core Supplier: As part of Apple Inc.’s iPhone supply chain, Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) will benefit from greater than expected iPhone production, analyst Brian Blair of Rosenblatt Securities Inc. said in a Dec. 9 research note. Production could be 72 million units in the December quarter and could exceed 60 million units in the March quarter, he said. Qualcomm makes the MDM9625M LTE modem and a few other chips in the new iPhones, according to a teardown analysis by iSuppli. By now, half of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)’s production is the higher margin iPhone 6 Plus.

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Short Takes: San Diego-based Brio, which bills its product as the world’s safest, smartest power outlet, was closing in on a $50,000 Kickstarter campaign as this issue was going to press. The company wants to make a conventional household 120-volt outlet that can tell the difference between electrical sockets and other things that aren’t supposed to go into outlets … An Annapolis, Md., business called Snag a Space now lets travelers use their mobile devices to reserve garage parking at the Four Points by Sheraton San Diego Downtown, which is seven minutes from Lindbergh Field by shuttle bus. Some downtown denizens may know the cylindrical building as the old Holiday Inn. … Gimbal Inc., the San Diego spinoff from Qualcomm, has come out with its Series 21 Bluetooth proximity beacon. The beacon acts sort of like an indoor cell tower, which informs certain apps about a person’s location, and lets a retailer’s computer send location-based content to that person’s cellphone. A person needs to opt-in on the system. Gimbal bills its new product as better-performing and smaller than its competition. How small? Speaking in a language San Diegans can understand, it’s about the size of a craft-beer coaster, and about an inch tall.

Send San Diego technology news to bradg@sdbj.com.

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