The past week in Boston demonstrated the range of emotions that people can experience working at a tech company. From the highs of snagging millions of investment dollars and launching products, to the lows of pulling the plug on a startup, this week had it all. Read on for details.
—Indigo, a two-year-old Cambridge, MA, startup formerly known as Symbiota, announced its official launch and revealed that it has raised $56 million in venture capital so far, led by Flagship Ventures. (The startup was created by Flagship’s VentureLabs.) Read more about Indigo, which is exploring ways to utilize plant microbes to improve the crop-growing process, in Xconomy’s profile from November 2014.
—Jisto closed a $2.45 million seed funding round led by .406 Ventures. The Boston startup’s technology enables big companies to more efficiently manage computing resources in data centers.
—Last month, mobile app startup Amino moved its headquarters from downtown Boston to New York, BetaBoston reported. The Techstars Boston alum employed more than 10 people here and was expanding, CEO and co-founder Benjamin Anderson told Xconomy in October.
But Anderson told BetaBoston’s Scott Kirsner that his company has been able to more quickly connect with experts in mobile technology and building online communities in New York; that’s also where some of its key investors are located, Kirsner pointed out.
—At the beginning of the week, Boston startup Dunwello told BostInno it was shutting down. By the end, that wasn’t such a sure thing. Founder Matt Lauzon told BetaBoston that the outpouring of responses to the closure and his blog post about failure surfaced some potential lifelines for Dunwello, a website for finding and recommending local professional service providers. Lauzon is reportedly exploring options for Dunwello, such as partnerships or raising more money from investors or through crowdfunding.
—Boston-based edtech startup Ellevation announced it raised $6.4 million from a group of investors that includes Emerson Collective, which is a fund led by Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow; and Zuckerberg Education Ventures, the fund established by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Ellevation’s software is focused on helping people learn English.
—GSN Games purchased Plumbee, a competing casino video games maker based in the U.K., for an undisclosed price. GSN Games, which is owned by Sony and DirecTV, has an office in Boston.
