Boston’s Top 10 VC Deals of Q4: Warp Drive, Rapid7, & More

We’ve recently reported on venture capital deal trends from last quarter—for example, Massachusetts regained its No. 2 ranking behind California and ahead of New York in dollars and deals—but let’s take a closer look at some of those deals.

Of the Boston area’s 10 biggest venture investment deals from the fourth quarter of 2011, six were in life sciences and four were in software and tech. The fields of genomics, obesity drugs, nano-drugs, security software, and data management were among those represented.

So here are the top 10 deals (and links to our coverage), as tabulated by Dow Jones VentureSource:

1. Warp Drive Bio, Cambridge, MA, $125 million (story)

2. Agios Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA, $78 million (story)

3. Rapid7, Boston, MA, $50 million (story)

4. Selecta Biosciences, Watertown, MA, $47.25 million (story)

5. BIND Biosciences, Cambridge, MA, $47.25 million (story)

6. Cyber-Ark Software, Newton, MA, $40 million (story)

7. Zink Imaging, Bedford, MA, $35 million (story)

8. Ember Therapeutics, Boston, MA, $34.19 million (story)

9. Actifio, Waltham, MA, $33.5 million (story)

10. Acceleron Pharma, Cambridge, MA, $30.47 million (story)

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.