There’s much to report from New England’s tech and life sciences sectors this week. Let’s get started.
—Clarus Ventures of Cambridge, MA, joined with the likes of InterWest Partners and Arch Venture Partners to lead a $10 million Series A financing for Ann Arbor, MI-based Lycera. The startup is developing treatments for autoimmune diseases based on research from the University of Michigan and New York University School of Medicine.
—New Atlantic Ventures closed its third fund, NAV III LP, at $115 million. The venture firm, with offices in Cambridge, MA, and Reston, VA, invests in high-growth technology sectors such as wireless, new media, and online services.
—Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove forged an alliance with Adobe Systems to make it harder to pirate Flash-based streaming media files and easier to publish video made with Adobe’s video production software via Brightcove’s video hosting system. Wade got the details on the collaboration from Jeff Whatcott, Brightcove’s senior vice president of marketing.
—Bob got the rundown on the top 10 New England venture deals of the first quarter. Watertown, MA-based A123Systems and Waltham, MA-based Proteon Therapeutics topped the list, raising $69 million and $38 million, respectively.
—Pharmaceutical behemoth Merck (NYSE:[[ticker:MRK]]) agreed to pay the Massachusetts Medical School’s Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories and Princeton, NJ-based Medarex (NASDAQ:[[ticker:MEDX]]) $60 million up front for an exclusive worldwide license to
