This week in Boston tech, we’re tracking the latest news about local accelerators, company acquisitions, office expansions, and more. Read on for details.
Accelerators rise and fall
—A new accelerator program serving digital health startups and run by MassChallenge will soon open in the Hatch Fenway startup co-working space in Boston, located in the Landmark Center near the Longwood Medical Area, the Boston Globe reported. The digital health program will serve 30 to 40 startups at a time and will be funded initially through a $250,000 state grant. The move is part of a broader public-private initiative aimed at boosting Massachusetts’s digital health cluster.
—A new Boston accelerator program, Our Generation Speaks, will recruit Israelis and Palestinians to work together on “social impact ventures,” BetaBoston reported. The program was started by Ohad Elhelo, a Brandeis University student and former intelligence officer in the Israeli military. MassChallenge and Brandeis are also partners in the initiative.
—Redstar Ventures, a five-year-old startup incubator in Cambridge, MA, will focus on supporting one new startup each year—down from three. Its staff has also shrunk in recent months, BetaBoston reported.
New digs, more employees
—Medical records software company eClinicalWorks intends to hire at least 400 people in Westboro, MA, after it expands into a vacant building it recently purchased, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
—Cambridge-based CarGurus, which has been growing its local staff, announced plans for an office in Dublin that will employ 100 people within three years. The new location marks the company’s first office outside of the U.S., and it will serve as the firm’s European headquarters.
—Data-storage company Infinidat is moving into a much larger local office and plans to double the size of its Massachusetts staff—currently at 35 employees—this year, the Boston Business Journal reported.
Buy/sell
—Waltham, MA-based V.i. Laboratories acquired Trackerbird Limited for an undisclosed price. Both companies provide technology that helps track how software is being used by business customers.
—Intuit (NASDAQ: [[ticker:INTU]]) is selling its QuickBase business to private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe for an undisclosed price. QuickBase, which provides software that helps businesses create custom cloud applications, will operate as a standalone business with headquarters in Cambridge.
Strategy shift
—Nashua, NH-based DataGravity will no longer sell hardware as part of its package of products that help businesses secure and analyze their data “at the point of storage,” according to Fortune. Instead, DataGravity will sell software that runs on other vendors’ storage arrays.
The decision will mean job cuts, although CEO Paula Long declined to provide numbers to Fortune. DataGravity laid off an unspecified number of people last month in order to trim spending, Fortune reported. The company has raised $92 million from investors and employed about 130 people as of last August.
