Bay State Newbies from J&J, PayPal, and More Gather in Kendall Square

Who are all these new guys around town?

Over the past year or so, Massachusetts has seen lots of outside companies set up offices in the Boston area. Not a new trend, but something to keep an eye on. Tonight a bunch of them will be in one place—Genzyme’s headquarters in Kendall Square, Cambridge—for a networking reception organized by nonprofit business group MassEcon.

The companies include BTI Systems of Littleton; CitySprout of Northampton; Copa Airlines of Boston; Cureport of Worcester; Desalitech of Newton; EnergySavvy of Cambridge; Janji of Brookline; Johnson & Johnson of Cambridge; MarketMeSuite of Cambridge; Nipendo of Burlington; PayPal of Boston; Sequence and PCI of Boston; Rhode Island Novelty Company of Fall River; Sony DADC of Cambridge; Xenetic Biosciences of Boston; and Zappix of Burlington. (That’s a pretty diverse mix of sectors and stages.)

Just a few notes on these companies: Desalitech, an Israeli water-treatment tech firm, has set up its U.S. headquarters in Newton and is now part of the local water innovation cluster. (A Massachusetts water delegation visited Israel in December to build relationships and encourage companies to set up shop here.) Nipendo is another Israel-founded company, this one working on software to connect enterprises with suppliers; it opened an office in Burlington at the beginning of March.

Meanwhile, MarketMeSuite has been in the Cambridge Innovation Center since last year; it specializes in social-media marketing for small businesses. EnergySavvy is a Seattle-based energy efficiency software startup that I got to know when I was living in the Northwest; the firm set up shop in Boston last year to be closer to East Coast customers. And PayPal is in Boston by virtue of its acquisition of Where in 2011; the company recently opened an office in Boston’s Financial District.

Some others not on the list, but which also moved to Boston recently (or opened office space), would include Lagoa, Sarepta Therapeutics, and Sqrrl.

We’ll see if Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter participate in the event next year. Maybe Oracle too, given its billion-dollar acquisitions in the area (see Endeca and Acme Packet).

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.