San Diego Venture Group on May 24 announced the latest batch of startups to make its “Cool Companies” list.

The organization, which works to link local early-stage companies with investors, said 180 companies applied for inclusion this year.

Founders of the companies are invited to meet in late June with roughly 100 venture capitalists and angel investors at a private event hosted by SDVG.

Mike Krenn, SDVG's chief executive, said 60 investors from outside of San Diego and 20 who are locally based are registered to attend.

In November 2017, San Diego startup NanoCellect, which was named to the Cool Companies list that year, raised $10 million in a financing round led by Illumina Ventures, the VC arm of DNA sequencing maker Illumina. New investors Anzu Partners, Vertical Venture Partners and 5 Prime Ventures and existing investors FusionX Ventures and Agilent Technologies also participated.

It was at SDVG’s private meet-and-greet event for the Cool Companies and investors that year that José Morachis, NanoCellect CEO, met investors from Illumina Ventures and Anzu, Krenn said.

In aggregate, 25 of the companies selected by SDVG in 2016 and in 2017 have raised more than $100 million in Series A funding.

SDVG’s Cool Companies of 2018:

Accel Robotics

Additive Rocket Corp.

Approved

Blueboard

DTx Pharma

Epitracker

GigaIO

GroGuru

Gryphon

Home Bay

Iteros

LabFellows

LynxBio

MedCrypt

Notogen

Omnics

PayRent.com

Primo Wind

Sensemetrics

Seqster

SmartShelf

Sourcify

Trials.ai

Triton Algae Innovations

Trust & Will

Uqora

Wildfire Systems

Yembo

Yobi

Zesty

Reach reporter Sarah de Crescenzo at sarahd@sdbj.com.