[Updated 2/29/12 at 10:45 am. See below] Life sciences, cleantech, mobile, and IT companies all had their fair share of deals announcements this week.
—Zipcar (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZIP]]), the Cambridge, MA-based car-sharing pioneer, led a $13.7 million investment round in Palo Alto, CA-based Wheelz, another startup in the space that’s targeting college students.
—Cambridge-based Satori Pharmaceuticals snapped up $15 million to fund the development of its experimental drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. The deal was led by existing investors InterWest Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and Prospect Venture Partners.
—FirstFuel Software pulled in a $10 million Series A funding round led by Rockport Capital and joined by existing investors Nth Power and Battery Ventures. The money will go toward R&D on Lexington, MA-based FirstFuel’s building energy analytics software and expansion in the government and utility markets.
—Reston, VA-based AppAssure Software, which has an office in Boston and is backed by the local firm Bain Capital Ventures, was acquired by Dell (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DELL]]), according to an announcement Friday. The purchase of AppAssure, which does data and application protection, yielded more than an 11-fold return for Bain.
—Andover, MA-based Quiet Logistics recently nabbed a $2.5 million loan from MassDevelopment that it will put towards building out its Devens, MA, warehouse.
—Charles River Ventures, with offices in Cambridge and Menlo Park, CA, announced that it had wrapped up its 15th fund at $375 million.
—And Boston-based mobile services firm Mobiquity said that it brought in a $3 million credit facility from Comerica Bank’s Technology & Life Sciences Division.
—Waltham, MA-based diagnostics and health management company Alere (NYSE: [[ticker:ALR]]) paid $270 million cash to acquire eScreen, a maker of toxicology screening and employee health technology. The deal, expected to close in 45 days, could include another $70 million in follow-on payments. [Paragraph added to include acquisition announcement on Wednesday.]
—Japan-based Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma will pay $200 million upfront to acquire Norwood, MA-based Boston Biomedical and potentially $540 million more in milestones related to the latter’s development of two drug compounds (BBI608 and BBI503) targeting cancer stem cells, as well as other sales milestones worth up to $1.89 billion. Last spring, Dainippon signed a product option license agreement with Boston Biomedical for the development and commercialization rights in Japan for all oncology indications of BBI608. That drug is in the prep stages for a Phase 3 clinical trial for colorectal cancer and is in earlier trials for various solid tumors. [Paragraph added with the acquisition news released on Wednesday.]
