Google-ITA Acquisition Advances, Nano Terra Buys Surface Logix, Blueprint Medicines Gets $40M, & More Boston-Area Deals News

We saw acquisitions in the life sciences, Internet, and mobile sectors, as well as financings for startups spanning high-tech industries in New England.

—Akiban Technologies, a Boston database software maker, added another $3.2 million to its $6.5 million financing from 2009. The company, whose previous investors include North Bridge Venture Partners and Foundation Capital, used to be called Akiba.

—World Energy Solutions (NASDAQ: [[ticker:XWES]] of Worcester, MA, said it was selling 1.5 million shares of common stock (at $3.60 per share) to several institutional investors, to put toward new investments and acquisitions in the energy management sector.

—Google’s $700 million acquisition of Cambridge, MA-based ITA Software, a developer of airfare pricing and shopping software, can now go through, thanks to a proposed settlement by the U.S. Department of Justice that includes stipulations requiring Google (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GOOG]]) to play fair with other travel site competitors. The settlement comes in response to a coalition of other travel technology companies opposing the deal last fall. The Department of Justice said Google must continue to license ITA’s software, and must offer it to other companies in the field, among other things.

—Cambridge-based Blueprint Medicines raised $40 million in a big Series A financing led by Third Rock Ventures. The stealthy company is focusing on personalized cancer treatments, using molecular and cancer genome data and a proprietary chemical-compound library.

—Zixi, a Waltham, MA-based maker of software enhancing the delivery of HD content over the Internet, said it raised $4 million from Schooner Capital, and TV execs Sidney Topol and Maurice Schonfeld.

—nSphere, a Boston firm focused on connecting users with relevant content from databases online, acquired Boston-based mobile couponing startup Peekaboo Mobile, for a sum reported to be seven figures.

—Digital Lumens, a Boston-based company combining LED lighting with networking software to lower commercial energy costs, got $10 million from its existing investors, Black Coral

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.