The conventional wisdom says you cannot build a tech company on the Central Coast. The conventional wisdom is wrong — it is just five years behind. Five startups founded in SLO County in the last 18 months have collectively raised $14.2 million, and none of their founders has any intention of relocating to San Francisco.

OceanEye, a Morro Bay startup that uses AI-powered underwater cameras to monitor sea otter populations for NOAA, just closed a $4.1M Series A. KelpWorks, based in Cayucos, turns harvested bull kelp into biodegradable packaging and has contracts with two Whole Foods regional distributors. Swell Logic, the surf-forecasting app we profiled in our People section, just crossed 14,000 users.