Santa Cruz Works News — Updates on Events, Community Stories & Local Innovation

INNOVATION NEWS

Check out our news highlights and archive here.

NOTE: Our blogs are typically “assisted by AI”. We use AI to assist us in research and style the way a human editor would.

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Malina Long 10/16/25 Malina Long 10/16/25

Goodles Makes LinkedIn Top Startups 2025 List

GOODLES has officially landed on LinkedIn's Top U.S. Startups list for 2025.

Malina Long 3/26/25 Malina Long 3/26/25

GOODLES Makes "Most Innovative Companies in Food for 2025" List

GOODLES makes Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Food 2025 list.

Malina Long 3/11/25 Malina Long 3/11/25

Goodles CEO Jen Zeszut Named on the Inc. Magazine 2025 Female Founders 500 List

Goodles CEO Jen Zeszut Named on the Inc. Magazine 2025 Female Founders 500 list.

Malina Long 12/12/23 Malina Long 12/12/23

Major Milestones Achieved By Santa Cruz County Companies in 2023

A reflection of some significant milestones achieved by Santa Cruz County companies in 2023.

Doug Erickson 9/14/23 Doug Erickson 9/14/23

GOODLES® Raises $13M in Series A Funding Round

GOODLES®, the fun-to-say, stylish, better-for-you noodle brand celebrated for its modern line of delicious and nutrient-packed boxed mac and cheese and pasta, today announced a $13 million Series A funding.

October 21, 2026

Santa Cruz County Brings Claude Aboard. What If It Helped Everything?

Supervisors approved the County's 2026 AI work plan, including a discounted Claude contract. We look at what changed, and imagine one AI interface that could search every County site and database.

Did Ukraine’s Strikes on Russian Data Centers Really Take Down Millions of Bots?

Ukraine attacked Russian data centers and shortly after a graph that illustrated a massive drop off of bot activity went viral. Unfortunately, the graph was quite misleading.

Reservoir Farms Expands to Washington State, Bringing Agricultural Robotics to Yakima Valley

The Salinas-based agricultural technology incubator will open its first Pacific Northwest location in spring 2027, focusing on robotics for tree fruit, blueberries and other high-value crops.

Why the Winner of Startup World Cup Santa Cruz Wants to Turn Off Gravity

g-SPACE, the Startup World Cup Santa Cruz Regional champion, uses physics and AI to show companies what happens when gravity disappears, before they spend a fortune launching anything into orbit.

Nominations Now Open: Santa Cruz Works Wavemaker Awards

Our annual awards event is BACK and with a new name: Wavemaker Awards…and nominations are now open!

Your Twenty-Dollar Bill Has Had a Really Complicated Day

A former cash-services operator built FlowLogicAI to give physical cash logistics an AI operating system, with eight pilot customers signed, an MVP launching this winter, and a pre-seed round open.

October 20, 2026

G-SPACE Wins Startup World Cup Santa Cruz Regional; Stork Labs Takes Second

Fifteen finalists, most of them women, pitched at The Catalyst on October 17. Sunnyvale’s G-SPACE took the regional title and a ticket to the Startup World Cup Grand Finale in San Francisco. Photo credits: Kalen Dion, Doug Erickson

The Most Radical Thing at Cat & Cloud Is the Conversation

In our Company Spotlight tour of Cat & Cloud on October 16, 2026, we learned how one Pleasure Point café grew into four shops and a roastery by betting on clear values and real human connection.

October 19, 2026

Is a Master's in Quantitative Economics on Your Radar? UCSC Wants to Hear From You

UC Santa Cruz's Economics Department is exploring whether its one-year MS in Quantitative Economics & Finance could serve working professionals in Santa Cruz County, and it's asking our community to weigh in.