Regular readers may have noticed that from time to time we like to give you a roundup of the last week’s worth of biz/tech news (and from time to time—like when we’re too busy with this week’s news—we skip it).
This time a couple of things are different, though. First, I’m going to focus only on deals news—because there was a whole lot of it last week. And second, this is our first roundup since we launched our News Xpress section, which covers on a more real-time basis many of the items we previously would have saved for the roundup. (The most recent News Xpress headlines are in the green box at the top of our homepage, or if you prefer we also have a complete full-text listing of all News Xpress items.)
So let us know, dear readers: Is it helpful to have both the real-time and roundup options for following the news, especially deal news? If not, which do you prefer and why? We’re at [email protected].
Now, here’s the deal with those deals…
—Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]) partnered with Shanghai Sunway Biotech to commercialize its lead gene therapy product candidate in China.
—OwnerIQ of Newton, MA, raised a first round worth $2 million for a network of websites containing consumer-device user manuals.
—Somerville, MA’s Dataupia—a data warehousing firm—raised $16 million in a Series B funding round.
—Acceleron Pharma of Cambridge, MA, closed its third big venture round, worth $31 million, led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
—Storage giant EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]), of Hopkinton, MA, announced it would acquire a Richardson, TX, data-center-software firm called Voyence for an undisclosed sum. Wade offers some nice perspective on how the deal fits into EMC’s strategy and the data industry in general.
—Cambridge, MA’s Zipcar and Seattle’s Flexcar announced they would merge.
—Boston-based document storage and data protection company Iron Mountain announced it would pay $158 million in cash for Mountain View, CA’s Stratify.
—SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SDBT]]), a voice-messaging firm in Bedford, MA, priced its IPO well below expectations in the wake of a rival’s claim of patent infringement.
—Waltham, MA-based Tego, an RFID firm, raised $6 million in a Series A round led by Bainco International Investors.
—And on Friday came the news that four Massachusetts firms—Newton’s HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals ($20 million), Sherborn’s Ascent Therapeutics ($8 million), Cambridge’s Bikam Pharmaceuticals ($3.6 million), and Lowell’s Virtual Iron ($13 million)—had collectively closed venture deals worth $44.6 million.
