There’s not one but two venture-fund closings to report this week. More below on those, and the rest of the week’s deals news from New England’s life science and tech firms.
—Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]) won a protracted bidding war with rival NetApp over software maker Data Domain. After EMC increased its offer for Santa Clara, CA-based Data Domain (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DDUP]]) to $33.50 per share, Sunnyvale, CA-based NetApp (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NTAP]]) announced it would bow out of the competition for control of Data Domain, a maker of tools for data deduplication. Greg got a great exclusive (as far as we can tell) interview with Kai Li, Data Domain’s co-founder and chief scientist, about the company’s technology and strategy, the future of data storage, and the implications of the EMC deal.
—Excel Venture Management of Boston closed a $125 million fund, which it intends to invest in life sciences companies poised to affect a broad range of industries, including information technology, alternative energy, agriculture, textiles, and chemistry. Luke had an interesting chat with one of the firm’s managing directors, Juan Enriquez, about its plans and some of the startups already in its portfolio.
—Fellow life sciences venture firm 5AM Ventures surpassed the $150 million target for its third fund. 5AM, which has offices in Waltham, MA, and Menlo Park, CA, pulled in $159.2 million from 34 investors.
—Bedford, MA-based Rapid Micro Biosystems raised $18.6 million in a Series A round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TVM Capital, Quaker BioVentures, and VIMAC Milestone Medica Fund. The startup makes technology,
—E-mail archiving firm Sonian of Dedham, MA, raised $4.1 million out of a planned $6.6 million private stock offering, according to documents filed with the SEC.
—The numbers from June, provided by our new partner, ChubbyBrain, showed that healthcare startups were attracting the most investment in Massachusetts, accounting for 9 of the 17 deals done during the month. Not a single deal in June involved cleantech or energy.
—Quincy, MA-based Modiv Media, a provider of in-store digital media tools for grocery stores, raised $1.2 million out of a planned $2.52 million financing round.
