[Updated 3/16/18, 8:59 am. See below.] Here are some notable recent headlines from the Boston-area tech scene, including Raytheon and Palantir teaming up for a huge Army contract, another CyberArk acquisition, and a startup that wants to digitally archive your mind. Read on for details.
—Waltham, MA-based defense contractor Raytheon (NYSE: [[ticker:RTN]]) and Palantir Technologies—the controversial data mining company co-founded by investor and President Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel—were awarded an $876 million contract to develop hardware and software to replace the U.S. Army’s Distributed Common Ground System. Read more about the deal in this Bloomberg report.
—Cambridge Innovation Center said it received a $58 million equity investment from European property developer HB Reavis, which will help the CIC open more of its co-working spaces and laboratories around the world. Cambridge, MA-based CIC currently operates offices in Cambridge; Boston; St. Louis; Miami; and Rotterdam, Netherlands. It plans to open spaces in Philadelphia; Providence, RI; Dublin; Tokyo; and Warsaw, Poland, according to a press release.
—In a press release e-mailed to Xconomy, The Finally Light Bulb Company said it closed a $50 million Series D funding round led by Brian Kelley, the former CEO of Keurig Green Mountain and former president of Coca-Cola Refreshments. Boston-based Finally sells energy-efficient light bulbs based partly on technologies first developed by Nikola Tesla.
—BewellConnect, a Boston-based connected health devices and services company, said that it will receive $30 million in funding through a deal its parent company, France-based Visiomed Group, signed with New York-based Hudson Bay Capital Management. The funding is in the form of bonds intended to convert into equity, a spokesperson said. Boston-based BewellConnect will receive the $30 million in three installments, and the deal includes an opportunity for the company to receive an additional $15 million, according to a press release e-mailed to Xconomy.
—CyberArk (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CYBR]]) said it acquired Vaultive, a cloud data security company that was founded in New York and later moved to Boston. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. CyberArk, an Israel-based privileged account security company that has U.S. headquarters in Newton, MA, has been an active acquirer in recent years. Its other deals include the purchases of Conjur last year and Viewfinity in 2015.
—Bullhorn, a Boston-based staffing and recruiting software company, said it acquired Chicago-based Talent Rover and San Francisco-based Jobscience, two businesses whose recruiting software is built on top of Salesforce’s software platform, according to a press release. The purchase prices weren’t disclosed, but a Bullhorn spokesman said that 75 employees from each of the acquired companies will join Bullhorn. Its other recent acquisitions include Netherlands-based Connexys and Atlanta-based Peoplenet. [This paragraph added.—Eds.]
—Continuum, a Boston-based product design and development consulting firm, was acquired by Newtown, PA-based EPAM Systems (NYSE: [[ticker:EPAM]]). The purchase price wasn’t released.
—Lastly, we’ll leave you with one to ponder. Nectome, a startup co-founded by MIT graduates that is collaborating with MIT neuroscientist Edward Boyden, is developing technology aimed at preserving the human brain in a way that will eventually enable memories to be digitized. The bigger goal is to create a computer-simulated version of people’s minds that could outlive them.
That mission raises a lot of questions, and the company’s approach is also likely to be controversial: Nectome requires the brain to be fresh, so customers will need to agree to be euthanized, according to an MIT Technology Review report. Nectome told Tech Review it will target people with terminal illnesses; the company’s leaders anticipate its services will be legal in places like California, which has a law permitting doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.
Nectome will reportedly pitch investors at Y Combinator’s startup accelerator demo day next week.
