It looks like New England’s tech and life sciences firms are working to ink financing, collaboration, and acquisition deals before the holiday weekend hits.
—Digital media and video-hosting firm Brightcove filed paperwork with the SEC indicating its hopes to raise $50 million in an initial public offering. Morgan Stanley and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company will serve as joint book-running managers for the deal for Brightcove, which is based in Cambridge, MA, but is planning a move to Boston.
—Verizon Communications said it acquired Burlington, MA-based CloudSwitch, whose technology creates a temporary work space on a cloud service for companies to run virtualized applications as if they were still running on their home infrastructure. CloudSwitch—which has raised $15 million from investors like Atlas Venture, Matrix Partners, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures—will be rolled into Verizon’s Terremark IT services division, working in enterprise cloud services. The CloudSwitch Burlington office will remain and even expand, the companies said.
—Buzzient, a Boston-based maker of analytics software enabling companies to use social media to track customer sentiment, raised $1.1 million in equity funding. The deal was led by Buzzient CEO Timothy Bernard Jones’ seed fund, TBJ Investments, and included Buzzient board members John Luongo and Ann Fudge, and serial entrepreneurs Allen Graber (of Atlanta) and Ralf Faber (Boston). The money will go to new hires in development, sales, and marketing.
—Norwood, MA-based early stage investment fund Advancit Capital raised $3.2 million. The newly formed firm is co-founded by Shari Redstone, daughter of CBS and Viacom director and National Amusements president Sumner Redstone, and will focus on investments in media, entertainment, and tech startups.
—Adimab, a Lebanon, NH-based developer of human antibody discovery technology, signed collaboration deals with Biogen Idec and Novo Nordisk. Each firm will use the Adimab technology to identify human antibodies against two targets of their choosing. Neither deal terms nor specific targets were disclosed, but Adimab will receive upfront payments and preclinical milestones, and could be eligible for clinical development milestones and sales royalties if the antibodies discovered are commercialized.
—EMD Millipore, the Billerica, MA-based subsidiary of Merck KGaA, has agreed to acquire Seattle-based Amnis for an undisclosed sum, in a deal expected to close fourth quarter of this year.
—Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, a maker of medical devices targeting obesity and diabetes, raised $80 million in Australian dollars ($85 million USD) in an initial public offering in the country, according to a report from The Australian. It had initially targeted an Australian IPO worth between $85 million and $102 million in U.S. dollars.
