Xconomy to expand into San Diego

Xconomy, an online news site devoted to covering technology, innovation, venture capital funds, biotechs and startups, plans to expand into the San Diego market by the end of the month.

The company was started about a year ago in Boston, with the core editorial team coming out of the MIT magazine Technology Review. A second editorial operation in Seattle started about three months ago.

Bruce Bigelow, a senior writer on the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune, will help Xconomy get its San Diego coverage up and running. He resigned from the daily on Aug. 22 and will begin working for Xconomy on Sept. 28.

Bigelow was a member of the team of reporters and editors from the Union-Tribune awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks.

He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for a series that chronicled the development of a San Diego start-up company.

Among Xconomy’s other hires has been Luke Timmerman, who covered biotech for Bloomberg News and for the Seattle Times.