[Updated 2/9/18, 3:32 pm. See below.] Here are some of the latest headlines from the Boston-area tech scene:
—Humatics, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of “microlocation” and analytics software for robots, grabbed $7.2 million from investors, according to an SEC filing. The new capital arrives a few months after Humatics announced an $18 million Series A funding round.
—Poly6 Technologies—a maker of new kinds of bio-based materials from waste and other components, such as citrus rinds—secured $1.3 million in venture funding, per an SEC filing. The Boston-based firm was one of the early companies to participate in the STEX25 startup accelerator program at MIT. (Humatics is another company that has received support from the initiative, according to the STEX25 website.)
—There were two other notable investments, although the deal announcements didn’t disclose the amounts invested. The Toro Company, the Minnesota-based maker of lawn mowers and other equipment, bought a minority stake in GreenSight Agronomics, a Boston drone startup serving the agricultural sector. Meanwhile, Radian Capital made a growth equity investment in Boston-based retail software company Blueday, which also named former Salesforce executive Graeme Grant as its CEO.
—Boston startup Mylestone recently shut down, BostInno reported. The company’s founding CEO, serial entrepreneur Dave Balter, shifted to the role of chairman in November in part so he could focus on his latest venture, Flipside Crypto. Mylestone head of product Drew Condon took the reins, but the startup only lasted a few more weeks, Balter reportedly told BostInno.
Mylestone struggled to get traction in the market and changed its product multiple times. It started out as an online service for creating meaningful and interactive tributes to lost loved ones, then became an Amazon Alexa “skill” that acted as a personal memory bank, and finally offered a service for creating custom photo books. Mylestone raised $4.5 million from investors, including True Ventures, Founder Collective, and Boston Seed Capital. [This news item added.—Eds.]
—Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, was named a visiting innovation fellow at MIT. His one-year stint will focus primarily on helping the Institute shape its new Intelligence Quest initiative, for which MIT aims to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to fund human and artificial intelligence research.
—Iboss, a cybersecurity firm that relocated its headquarters to Boston from San Diego last year, hired Chris Kasper as its chief operating and financial officer. Kasper was previously the CEO of Harvest Power. The Waltham, MA-based organic waste recycler is now led by Mark Weidman, who took over in mid-November, a spokeswoman told Xconomy.
—IBM veteran Anish Srivastava was appointed CEO of Littleton, MA-based OpenSky, a connected device security company owned by Tüv Rheinland, based in Germany.
—Co-working space operator Cambridge Innovation Center plans to take over 90,000 square feet of space at 255 Main Street in Cambridge, a prominent Kendall Square location that has long housed a local Microsoft office, the Boston Globe reported.
—MassRobotics, the nonprofit organization that supports Massachusetts robotics companies, plans to more than triple the size of its shared work space in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood, thanks to a $2.5 million state grant announced Friday. More than 70 people from around 30 organizations—startups, big companies, and university teams—work from MassRobotics’ current 15,000-square-foot space. It intends to add 35,000 square feet of space for offices, labs, a machine shop, and events, according to a press release. [This news item added.—Eds.]
—Three local tech companies announced new satellite offices: Everbridge will establish a new office in Washington, DC, after hiring a vice president of public sector sales there; Flywire opened an expanded Asia-Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore; and Evergage launched a German business with offices in Stuttgart and Berlin.
