How about half a dozen venture deals to brighten a dreary New England week? Those, and the rest of the Boston-area deals news, below.
—Several Boston-area firms helped funnel $40 million into cellulosic ethanol startup Coskata of Warrenville, IL. The Series C round was led by the new Cleantech Venture Fund of Blackstone Group, which has offices in New York, Boston, and several other cities, and was joined by Advanced Technology Ventures of Waltham, MA, and Palo Alto, CA; Globespan Capital Partners of Boston, Palo Alto, and Tokyo, Japan; Greatpoint Ventures of Cambridge, MA; and Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, CA.
—Bedford, MA-based Spire (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SPIR]]) inked a $54.9 million deal with Federal Prison Industries to supply solar cells for a photovoltaic module factory at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, NY.
—Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]) of Cambridge, MA, nabbed more than 100 active patent applications and 16 issued patents in a deal with Langhorne, PA-based Nucleonics. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal, which Alnylam says will strengthen its rights to develop RNAi-based drugs.
—Cambridge, MA-based Ascent Therapeutics granted Novartis rights to
