Despite the Thanksgiving holiday, it was a fairly busy week for deals in the Northwest. Some big companies reared their heads (or at least were reported to) in software, wireless, and biotech, and other deals are in the works, so stay tuned.
—The Times of London reported that Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) is looking to acquire Yahoo’s (NASDAQ: [[ticker:YHOO]]) search business for $20 billion. The veracity of the report has been seriously disputed, but it raises some interesting questions about the near-term future of the two companies.
—Kirkland, WA-based Clearwire (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CLWRD]]) closed its deal with Overland Park, KS-based Sprint Nextel (NASDAQ: [[ticker:S]]) to merge the two companies’ next-generation wireless Internet access businesses, as Wade Roush reported. With $3.2 billion in venture investment from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google, and Bright House Networks, the new company (which retains the name Clearwire) will upgrade its wireless data services to WiMax-based systems in 46 markets.
—Entellium, the troubled Seattle startup whose top two executives were arrested in October for fraud, is reportedly being bought by Intuit, a financial software firm based in Mountain View, CA, for about $8 million, according to TechFlash. The deal has not yet been finalized.
—Seattle-based DotNetNuke closed a Series A financing round from Silicon Valley venture firms August Capital and Sierra Ventures. Financial terms were not announced. DotNetNuke makes software for creating and managing interactive Web and intranet sites using a Microsoft platform.
—Cell Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CTIC]]) of Seattle teamed up with Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SPPI]]) of Irvine, CA, to create a joint venture, called RIT Oncology, to commercialize and develop the cancer drug Zevalin. The drug for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Xconomy has covered extensively, will be marketed in the U.S.
—Values of n, a collaborative-software startup in Portland, OR, was acquired by San Francisco-based Twitter for an undisclosed sum. The founder of Values of n, Rael Dornfest, has been hired by Twitter, the micro-messaging company, which also gets the startup’s assets and intellectual property, including software for personal online assistance and smart sticky notes.
—Not exactly a deal, but a story of several deals: Xconomy got the rundown on the finer points of bootstrapping a tech business versus raising venture or angel financing, from the co-founders of the Seattle-based startups CultureMob, Tableau Software, and Robot Co-op (creators of 43 Things and other social websites).
