Zipcar Goes Public, PTC Buys MKS, Third Rock Leads $18.3M Series B for Taris, & More Boston-Area Deals News

This week we’ve seen a slew of startup financings and an IPO in the New England area.

—Third Rock Ventures became an investor in Taris Biomedical, leading an $18.3 million Series B financing for the MIT spinout. The company will use the money to advance its drug-delivery device, for treating a variety of bladder ailments.

—Needham, MA-based CAD and product development software firm PTC (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PMTC]]) said that it bought MKS for CDN$292.5 million, at CDN$26.20 per share in cash. MKS (TSX: [[ticker:MKXX]]) provides technology for managing the development of software applications.

—Currensee, a Boston-based provider of online tools for investors interested in foreign markets, said it raised $4 million in Series C funding, from North Bridge Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital, and Vernon & Park Capital.

—Cambridge, MA-based car-sharing company Zipcar (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZIP]]) went public, offering 9.7 million shares at $18 per share. Zipcar raised $174.3 million in the deal, which was an increase over the 8.3 million shares the company originally planned to offer at $14 to $16 per share.

—Cambridge-based Merrimack Pharmaceuticals announced it had raised $77 million in a Series G round of funding, to put toward its pipeline of

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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.