[Updated 2:30 pm]
A dose of deals, legal, and hiring news to liven up the week:
—Rapid Micro Biosystems, a supplier of quality-control testing equipment for the pharmaceutical industry, has raised a $32.6 million Series B investment round. The Bedford, MA-based company has developed technology that can quickly identify tiny microbes, which are serious contaminants in the drug-making process. The company raised an $18.6 million Series A round in 2009.
—Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]) is wrangling a tax cut from the state to help boost its growth plans. The Watertown, MA-based company, which makes software for electronic healthcare records, is in line for a $9.5 million state tax credit, according to The Boston Globe. For its part, Athenahealth is pledging to add some 1,900 jobs to its existing workforce of more than 1,000 in Watertown.
—RunKeeper, the Boston-based fitness-tracking app for smartphones and other connected devices, is partnering with another health-conscious service. RunKeeper’s collaboration with MyFitnessPal will allow users to blend their profiles on both services—for example, calorie counts from MyFitnessPal’s nutrition service will be visible on RunKeeper’s feed of updates. No financial terms were disclosed. RunKeeper has about 20 million users, and MyFitnessPal has about 40 million.
—Cambridge officials have lost a court battle with Uber, the slick smartphone app for booking cab, car service, and “ridesharing” trips. Cambridge filed the lawsuit last year, arguing that San Francisco-based Uber’s smartphone fare-calculating technology wasn’t allowed under existing rules. That was despite Gov. Deval Patrick pushing to have Uber used in the region, overturning an earlier ruling from state regulators. More on the case from Boston.com.
—Brightcove, a Boston-based online video technology vendor, has hired a short-tenured former RealNetworks CEO as senior vice president of products. Thomas Nielsen was RealNetworks’ CEO for about seven months, mysteriously resigning last July. RealNetworks founder Rob Glaser took over as interim CEO in an attempt to remake the dot-com era online media company.
—Boston investment firm Allied Minds, which puts money into technologies from research universities and federal labs, has added another $100 million to its investment pool. That puts the firm’s overall assets at $500 million, Allied Minds said in a press release. No word on who the firm’s investors are. Allied Minds says it has “created more than 26 companies, including six in the past year.”
