Funding for Diagnostics, Crowdsourced Problem Solving, & Medicine Counterfeiting Prevention

We spotted a few investments in New England startups working on a mix of technology in life sciences and collaboration. Take a look.

—Cambridge, MA-based Daktari Diagnostics, a maker of an HIV diagnostics system for use in developing countries, took in $1.17 million of a targeted $1.25 million debt round of funding, according to an SEC filing. The startup is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as individual investors, Hub Angels, Launchpad Venture Group, Mass Medical Angels, Norwich Ventures, and Partners Innovation Fund. Daktari nabbed a $1.8 million equity investment last November.

—PharmaSecure of Lebanon, NH, pinned down $2.5 million of an equity-based funding round that could hit $6 million, an SEC filing shows. Its previous investors include Tech Coast Angels, Gray Ghost Ventures, and Life Science Angels. PharmaSecure, founded in 2007, offers mobile authentication technology to prevent the sale of counterfeit drugs in emerging markets. It is a field also targeted by Boston-based Sproxil.

—Waltham, MA-based InnoCentive raised $844,717 of a potential $7.5 million equity financing, an SEC document revealed. The company, which was incubated by Eli Lilly starting in 2001 and is now an independent company, offers platforms for enabling companies and organizations to collaborate with employees, customers, and partners on problem-solving throughout processes such as R&D. It has collaborations with Popular Science Magazine, Cleveland Clinic, and the city of Boston, to name a few. InnoCentive raised $7.3 million from Spencer Trask Ventures in August 2009.

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.