A fine selection of venture capitalists and startups raising money, acquisitions, new offices, and court victories in this end-of-the-week collection of news from around the Boston-area innovation scene:
—NextView Ventures, an early stage VC firm, is raising its second fund. Paperwork filed with the SEC offers no clues about the fund’s size or investors, but it’s significant to note that NextView is out raising another fund less than two years after closing its first one. NextView officially closed its first fund in February 2012 at $21 million. Partners Lee Hower, David Beisel, and Rob Go typically invest $250,000-$500,000 in seed rounds. Their portfolio includes TaskRabbit, Objective Logistics, Custom Made, and Swipely. The firm declined to comment.
—Boston-based Sample6, a biotech food-safety startup, has raised an $11 million Series B round led by Canaan Partners. Cultivian Sandbox and Flybridge Capital Partners also contributed. Sample6’s products include bio-engineered sensors that light up when they find unwanted bacteria, such as Listeria. The company says the new cash will help it sell its first products, and could help it expand to the healthcare market.
—Nuance (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NUAN]]) says it will acquire Seattle-based business messaging company Varolii. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Varolii was founded under a different name in 2000 by MIT grads, and at one point had filed for an $86 million IPO. But it shelved those plans as the Great Recession took hold in 2008, and rejiggered with layoffs and a new CEO.
—Intelligent.ly, a community-focused business and tech skills training center, is moving. Its new home is the Boston headquarters of Communispace, a digital customer-service company. Intelligent.ly’s former home had been the offices of BzzAgent, the marketing startup acquired by British firm dunnhumby. More from the Boston Business Journal, which interviewed co-founder Sarah Hodges.
—A minor court victory in Boston for Aereo, the New York-based startup (with Boston employees) that streams over-the-air network TV to customers’ digital devices. Aereo says a federal judge has denied Hearst Corp.’s request for a preliminary injunction against the startup, which could have halted its service while the two companies’ federal lawsuit is sorted out. Hearst sued in Boston through its local station, ABC affiliate WCVB. The court case continues, just one of many that Aereo has faced (with some success) from the traditional broadcast companies.
