Some pieces of Boston-area innovation news that have been kicking around in the post-holiday lull, now fresh for consideration:
—Consumer United, a Boston-based company that pools consumers to get better rates on insurance and other services, has raised about $21.2 in equity financing, according to an SEC filing. The company was listed on the Inc. 500 list of fast-growing private companies last year, reporting 2011 revenue of $4.8 million.
—Kyruus has raised $11 million in VC financing in a Series B round. The company, which makes software for healthcare providers, says the cash will help it expand sales and marketing. The investment was led by Lux Capital. Fidelity Biosciences and previous investors Venrock and Highland Capital Partners also participated. Kyruus (which was featured at our Health IT summit last year) has now raised $19.6 million since 2010.
—Nara Logics, a startup developing an advanced Web search service, has raised another $3 million. The financing adds to a previous investment of $4 million, with both rounds led by Boston-based Account Management. As we detailed last summer, Nara is attempting to help consumers navigate the flood of information online by making search more personalized—and enlisting experts in neuroscience as well as computer engineering.
—PatientsLikeMe, a Cambridge-based startup that runs a social network for people with medical conditions, has added $3 million in equity financing, according to an SEC filing. The company was founded in 2004 by three MIT engineers: Brothers Benjamin and James Heywood and their friend, Jeff Cole. They say the company was inspired by the diagnosis of a third Heywood brother, Stephen, with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
—BigBelly Solar, a 10-year-old Newton company that makes solar-powered roadside trash and recycling containers, has appointed former Segway chief Jim Norrod as its new CEO.
—RallyPoint Networks, which is developing a LinkedIn-type professional network for military veterans, announced a total of nearly $1.6 million in financing. The financing came mostly in two chunks—a $550,000 investment in the spring, and another $1 million or so last month, from angel investors in Boston, London, and Washington, DC. RallyPoint was one of the $100,000 prize winners at this year’s MassChallenge awards. The company was started by two Army veterans who met up at Havard Business School.
—The Yankee Group, a Boston-based fixture in technology business analysis, has been sold. The new owner is the 451 Group, an analysis company based in New York. Yankee Group had been owned by Boston’s Alta Communications, a private equity firm. The price wasn’t disclosed. Yankee Group was founded in 1970 by Howard Anderson, an MIT business school lecturer and one of our Xconomists.
