We’ve been lighter on news of New England financings in the last week, but we saw some headlines from investing firms and startup mentoring programs, alongside a few smaller deals for software and life sciences companies.
—GlaxoSmithKline’s venture arm SR One led a $22 million Series B funding round for Cambridge, MA-based Constellation Pharmaceuticals, a startup developing drugs that aim to treat cancer by targeting epigenetic switches. SR One is led by Boston biotech entrepreneur Christoph Westphal, who founded companies such as Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]), Momenta Pharmaceuticals (NADAQ: [[ticker:MNTA]]), and Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which Glaxo bought for $720 million in 2008.
—Flagship Ventures is gearing up to raise $300 million for its next fund, Dow Jones VentureWire reported. The Cambridge-based firm drew a $20 million commitment from the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, which has backed previous Flagship funds. The firm declined to comment on the newest planned fund.
—Wade checked out companies that are emerging from Boston’s TechStars operation, which is a three-month bootcamp-style program for startups. The 10 startups pitched to angel and venture investors in the hopes of scoring early stage funding. We haven’t heard of any financings that the graduated companies have closed yet, but I thought it was worth spotlighting them in our deals roundup as a sign of potentially what’s to come.
—Ryan took a look at MoMelan Technologies, a Cambridge-based biotech startup that quietly drummed up about $1 million in debt financing in March to develop its device for treating for the physical effects of skin diseases such as vitiligo, which causes the formation of irregular white spots. The company’s technology, which comes from Harvard dermatologist R. Rox Anderson, aims to amplify the area of skin that a traditional skin graft covers.
—Nashua, NH-based AutoVirt, a startup working on data migration and virtualization software, pulled in $1.5 million in an offering of debt and options and warrants. The company raised another $5 million in Series A money last November, with backing from Kepha Partners and Sigma Partners.
