🐺 Keysight just put $50M into a San Diego company. Liquid Instruments.

Keysight Technologies just co-led a $50M Series C in a San Diego company.

This isn’t a normal venture round. Keysight is the dominant incumbent in test and measurement. When the incumbent invests in the disruptor and signs a commercial agreement with them, it tells you the industry is shifting.

That's one of three SD companies worth knowing about this week.

Howl yeah, let's dive in.

Liquid Instruments - 4 SD Roles

Just closed a $50M Series C co-led by Keysight Technologies. Reconfigurable test equipment used by quantum startups, defense primes, and top research institutes. All four open SD roles are on the commercial team.

Why they matter:

For decades, lab benches looked the same. An oscilloscope here, a signal generator there, a spectrum analyzer wedged in between. Each instrument doing one job. Each costing thousands of dollars. Each separate hardware.

Liquid Instruments built the alternative. Their Moku platform is a single reconfigurable device that does the work of 15+ traditional instruments. Software-defined hardware. The same box becomes an oscilloscope when you need one, a signal generator when you need that, and an AI-driven measurement platform when you need something custom.

On April 28, 2026, the company closed a $50M Series C co-led by Keysight Technologies and Australia's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation. Keysight isn't just an investor here. They're also entering a commercial arrangement with Liquid Instruments to accelerate AI-driven instrumentation. That's the dominant incumbent of the test-and-measurement industry partnering with the company building its software-defined replacement.

Moku is already deployed at top tech companies, research institutes, quantum startups, and defense primes. With this raise, they're scaling go-to-market across aerospace, defense, and semiconductor.

Momentum signals:

• $50M Series C co-led by Keysight Technologies and Australia's National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (April 28, 2026)

• Commercial partnership with Keysight to accelerate AI-driven instrumentation

• Moku platform consolidates 15+ traditional instruments into one reconfigurable device

• Funds will scale go-to-market in aerospace, defense, and semiconductor

Open roles (all San Diego):

• Sales

• Account management

• Marketing Engineer

• GTM Operations Specialist

• All 4 Open Roles

$50M Series C. The test-and-measurement incumbent on the cap table. All four open SD roles are on the commercial team. If you sell into engineers and scientists in aerospace, defense, or semiconductor, this is the GTM build-out that's going to define how Moku scales over the next two years.

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Art of Problem Solving - 15 Open SD Roles

Every 2024 US Math Olympiad team member trained on their software. SD-based for 22 years. Founder just came back as CEO and they're hiring across nearly every function.

Why they matter:

San Diego's tech ecosystem runs on engineers and scientists who grew up doing math. Most of the strongest young mathematicians in America grew up doing Art of Problem Solving.

AoPS is the K-12 math and STEM education company that's been quietly producing the next generation of technical talent for over two decades. Online courses, in-person classes, textbooks, and competition prep built for students who want to go further than the standard curriculum.

How far does it go? Every single member of the 2024 USA International Math Olympiad team was an AoPS alumnus. The IMO is the top-tier mathematics competition for high school students worldwide.

In February 2026, founder Richard Rusczyk returned as CEO to guide the company's next chapter. Rusczyk had moved to a board role in March 2025 when Ben Kornell took the CEO seat. He came back just under a year later. He also won the 2025 Bezos Courage & Civility Award the same year he stepped back.

15 open SD roles. And the spread tells the story.

Momentum signals:

• Founder Richard Rusczyk returned as CEO (February 2026)

• Founder won the 2025 Bezos Courage & Civility Award

• Every 2024 USA International Math Olympiad team member is an AoPS alumnus

• Launched new Honors and Scholars course structure (2025)

Open roles across:

• Engineering

• Design

• Product

• Data and Analytics

• Marketing

• All 15 open SD roles

Education companies don't usually make Career Coyote. AoPS does because of who they produce. And right now, with a new Director of Product Design alongside 14 other roles, they're also clearly investing in how AoPS shows up to students. The platform that's produced every recent US Math Olympiad team is hiring for its next chapter.

EyePop.ai - 1 SD Role

Just won two top honors at ISC West 2026, including Judges' Choice. Computer vision deployment without machine learning expertise.

Why they matter:

Building a custom computer vision model used to take a machine learning team, a year of work, and a lot of trial and error.

EyePop built a self-service platform that turns it into hours. Their cloud-based interface lets developers, security operators, and non-ML teams build, train, and deploy custom computer vision models without writing model code.

In March 2026, the Security Industry Association recognized them with two awards at ISC West 2026: the Judges' Choice Award and the Video Analytics category award. Judges' Choice is one of only two top honors in the entire SIA program, which has been recognizing industry innovation since 1979.

EyePop is also a Qualcomm AI Hub collaborator. That means their models deploy directly to Snapdragon-powered Windows devices and Android phones without extra coding.

Eleven employees just beat the entire security industry to two ISC West awards.

Momentum signals:

• Two ISC West 2026 SIA Awards: Judges' Choice + Video Analytics category (March 2026)

• Qualcomm AI Hub collaborator with direct deployment to Snapdragon devices

• Self-service computer vision platform launched for non-ML teams

• 11-person team based in San Diego

Open role:

• Account Engineer

A small SD team just beat the entire security industry to two ISC West awards. One open role. If you're a builder who wants in early at a Judges' Choice-caliber computer vision company, here's the opening.

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On the Radar

Three companies from last week still hiring and worth your time:

• Seasats - 13 open SD roles. The center of San Diego's aquatic drone scene. Just landed $24M in Department of War APFIT funding and a $20M Series A led by Konvoy Ventures.

• Neomorph - 3 open SD roles. Just closed $100M Series B led by Deerfield Management with participation from Regeneron Ventures, advancing their molecular glue degrader platform toward Phase 1/2 cancer trials.

• Cloudbeds - 9 open roles across SD and remote. The 2026 State of Independent Hotels Report shows OTA share of independent bookings hit 63.4%. Cloudbeds is building the AI tools to address it.

One pattern this week:

Defense tech is mainstreaming (Liquid plus Keysight). Legacy education companies are now tech employers (AoPS). And an 11-person SD team just beat the entire security industry (EyePop). The opportunity surface in San Diego is wider than people think.

Let's help good people find great San Diego teams.

Jonah 🐺

P.S. Know someone job-hunting in SD tech? Forward this email. They can join in too at thecareercoyote.beehiiv.com.

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