The B word (billion) cropped up in not one but two deals in this week’s New England tech and life sciences news.
—Cambridge, MA-based E Ink agreed to be acquired for $215 million by Taiwan-based display manufacturer Prime View International. The Taiwanese firm was already a partner of E Ink’s on the manufacture of its electronic paper display technology, which is used in Amazon’s Kindle and other e-book devices. Wade had a great interview with E Ink CEO Russ Wilcox after the deal was announced.
—RxVantage of Providence, RI, took in a $500,000 seed investment from Providence venture firm Slater Technology Fund. The startup provides Web-based scheduling software for healthcare companies and doctors’ offices.
—Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]) launched a bidding war with Sunnyvale, CA-based rival NetApp (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NTAP]]) over Data Domain (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DDUP]]), a Santa Clara, CA-based data deduplication company. NetApp had already offered $25 a share for Data Domain on May 20; EMC came in with a $30 per share offer on June 1—a deal that would value Data Domain at $1.8 billion. NetApp came back two days later with a $1.9 billion offer, which is still on the table.
—Optical-switch maker Polatis of Andover, MA, and Cambridge, England, routed $8 million into its coffers from existing investors 3i Ventures, Alta-Berkeley Ventures, DFJ Esprit,
