Acquisitions, product releases, and some stealthy fundraising make up this quick trip through tech-industry headlines around the Boston area:
—Locu, a San Francisco-based startup that was hatched out of MIT, has been acquired by online hosting company GoDaddy. The price wasn’t disclosed, but AllThingsD reports the deal was worth about $70 million. The startup was aiming to organize large amounts of real-world business data online, starting with small-business stuff like restaurant menus. Locu had raised about $4.6 million in private financing, most of it from a $4 million Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners in 2012.
—Second Wind, a Newton, MA-based company that measures wind for alternative-energy developers, has been acquired by the Finnish firm Vaisala for an undisclosed sum. Second Wind, which has been around since 1980, made headlines when it took on some additional funding in 2007, just as clean energy tech was on the upswing.
—Benu Networks, a stealthy Billerica, MA-based startup, has filed SEC paperwork for a $5 million equity round. The company’s website doesn’t say much, but indicates that Benu is working with network operators to improve their services. Listed as directors are Todd Dagres of Spark Capital, Stefan Dyckerhoff of Sutter Hill Ventures, and Louis Toth of Comcast Ventures.
—HubSpot, the Cambridge, MA-based marketing software company, has updated its product offerings in conjunction with its big annual conference. The notable additions include Signals, a new product aimed at salespeople, which is a change in direction for the company. As the Boston Business Journal and others have noted, that feature in particular competes with something offered by fellow Boston-area startup Yesware. Moving into sales software is also notable because of Salesforce’s investment in HubSpot—and its subsequent acquisition of competitor ExactTarget.
