Boston Roundup: Infinio, Rethink Robotics, Boston Dynamics

Fundraising, layoff, and acquisition news from around the IT software and robotics sectors in the past few days:

—Infinio, a Cambridge, MA-based IT software developer, says it has raised a $12 million Series B investment. The money comes from existing backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Osage University Partners. The startup started selling its first product earlier this year: software that helps corporate IT departments make their server storage more efficient. Inifino has now raised about $24 million in total venture investment, including a $10 million Series A round in February.

—Rethink Robotics, the Boston-based humanoid manufacturing robotics startup founded by iRobot (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRBT]]) co-founder Rod Brooks, has laid off about 20 people. The news was reported by Boston.com, which quotes CEO Scott Eckert saying the layoffs are due to Rethink focusing on a few market segments that have been stronger buyers of the company’s “Baxter” robots. The company has raised more than $73 million since its founding in 2008.

—Boston Dynamics, a maker of robots with animal-inspired ways of moving across rough terrain, has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed price. The news was announced in The New York Times, which also was Google’s venue for revealing that it had acquired more than a half-dozen robotics startups in a new effort headed by Android smartphone software co-founder Andy Rubin. No word on what Google (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GOOG]]) plans to do with Boston Dynamics, which has so far been making a lot of robots and prototypes for military research. Generally, the company’s new robotics push is seen as a possible way of ramping up delivery or manufacturing tasks—it has also been working on self-driving cars, for instance. Here’s a video of one of the Waltham company’s crazy hill-climbing bots:

Author: Curt Woodward

Curt covered technology and innovation in the Boston area for Xconomy. He previously worked in Xconomy’s Seattle bureau and continued some coverage of Seattle-area tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. Curt joined Xconomy in February 2011 after nearly nine years with The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization. He worked in three states and covered a wide variety of beats for the AP, including business, law, politics, government, and general mayhem. A native Washingtonian, Curt earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. As a past president of the state's Capitol Correspondents Association, he led efforts to expand statehouse press credentialing to online news outlets for the first time.