[Updated 9:05 am] It’s trade-show week in the technology and life sciences fields, with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the JP Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco. That means announcements and deals have been pouring forth, along with some of the usual dealmaking and people-moving of note in the greater Boston technology scene:
—We saw a big acquisition in the health IT industry thanks to Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]). The Watertown-based firm bought another public company, San Mateo, CA’s Epocrates (NASDAQ: [[ticker:EPOC]]), which makes mobile medical applications. The price tag for this deal was some $293 million. Athenahealth has been around since 1997. Its founders are CEO and chairman Jonathan Bush and Todd Park, who is currently serving as the Obama administration’s chief technology officer.
—Cambridge-based Foundation Medicine has landed some high-profile tech industry investors: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. The two were part of an investor syndicate, including several VC firms, that added $13.5 million to expand Foundation’s Series B financing. Foundation develops tests that analyze the genomic makeup of a patient’s cancer tumor, potentially giving doctors a clearer picture of what is driving the tumor’s growth.
—Lotus Tissue Repair, a startup that was unveiled just 18 months ago, has been purchased by Irish biotech firm Shire. No price was given for the sale, which represents the second exit for prolific biotech investor Third Rock Ventures, a five-year-old Boston VC firm. Third Rock got Lotus running as its sole investor, and later led a $26 million Series A round in the startup. Lotus Tissue is developing a treatment for a painful skin disorder.
—Attivio, a Newton-based company that offers data analysis software for big businesses, has added $8 million in growth financing. The investment, from the General Electric Pension Trust, adds to a $34 million investment last fall led by Oak Investment Partners. The five-year-old company doesn’t disclose its revenues, but has said that its sales have been doubling for several years.
—Cambridge-based Sand 9, which makes ultra-small timer and frequency control components for wireless devices, has added another $2 million to its existing Series C round. The company declined to identify the investors, Mass High Tech reports.
—Ovuline, a recent graduate of the TechStars incubator in Boston, has rounded up $1.4 million to build its pregnancy-tracking software service. Ovuline takes an algorithm and machine-learning approach to the sometimes tricky timing of making babies—and two of the founders have welcomed kids since the project began, making them Ovuline’s “beta babies,” CEO Paris Wallace says.
—Boston-based Digital Lumens has pulled in $10 million in new funding from previous investors, which include Black Coral Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Stata Ventures. The LED lighting startup says it has expanded its customer base and is moving into new markets. The company raised a $10 million Series B round in the spring of 2011. [This item was added after initial publication—Eds.]
—Finally, some personnel news: Gus Weber has left Polaris Venture Partners to join ESPN as a digital product director. Weber joined Polaris two years ago after a stint at Microsoft’s NERD center, working as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the firm’s Dogpatch Labs and eventually joining its investment team. On his personal blog, Weber has kind words for Polaris, which also saw Ryan Spoon head to ESPN just this past summer.
At the same time, Polaris says Dogpatch Labs will move its physical location and become tightly integrated with the Cambridge Innovation Center.
