Hey look, a story that has nothing to do with the Twitter IPO! How unusual. Instead, we’ve got a few news tidbits about tech companies big and small opening offices, getting acquired, and raising money:
—Facebook, infamously started in the Boston area before decamping to California, is finally publicly acknowledging that it’s set up an engineering office here. The news comes via a Facebook post (of course) from Boston-area office leader Ryan Mack, who writes that he moved to the area more than two years ago when his wife got a job at a biotech startup. Boston.com reported in August that the company was securing an office in Cambridge’s Kendall Square.
—Sold, an e-commerce startup founded by MIT Media Lab alumni, has itself been sold. The employees are joining Dropbox in what looks like a classic talent acquisition: Sold’s app is no longer accepting new customers and will be shut down. The startup, which was less than a year old, aimed to help consumers resell high-end gadgets by bundling automatic price estimates, shipping, and payments. It had raised about $1.2 million from Google Ventures, Greylock Partners, and others.
—Rethink Robotics, the humanoid assembly line robot startup from iRobot co-founder Rod Brooks, has filed paperwork for another $11.5 million in equity financing. That would put the company’s total fundraising to date at more than $73 million. Rethink Robotics also recently expanded the research version of Baxter into Asia through a distribution deal with Nihon Binary. Brooks, by the way, is one of our keynote speakers at Xconomy’s Hardtech Revolution event in New York on Dec. 9.
—RallyPoint Networks, a professional networking startup aimed at military members and veterans, has raised a $5 million Series A financing round. The company, started by two Army veterans who met at Harvard Business School, was one of the winners at last year’s MassChallenge awards. RallyPoint says it now has more than 125,000 members.
