New England’s life sciences and software companies kept us busy with news of early venture rounds, IPOs, and partnerships.
—Battery Ventures, with offices locally in Waltham, MA, announced the close of its ninth fund, at $750 million. Existing limited partners account for about 85 percent of the fund’s investors, said the firm, which also has locations in Israel and California. The new fund will invest in a gamut of industries, including digital media, clean tech, enterprise IT, and semiconductors.
—Sensata Technologies (NYSE:[[ticker:ST]]), an Attleboro, MA-headquartered maker of sensors and switches, started trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week in an initial public offering priced at $18 a share, the low end of its proposed range of $18 to $20 per share. The 31.6 million-share IPO raised $568.8 million.
—Rapid7, a Boston maker of network security software, pulled in half of a planned $4 million equity offering, according to a regulatory filing. Members of Bain Capital Ventures, an existing Rapid7 investor, were listed as directors on the filing for the $2 million financing, which included a total of eight investors.
—In more IPO news, Cambridge, MA-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AVEO]]) made its public debut, selling 9 million shares at $9 apiece, well below the initially proposed range of $13 to $15 a share. The cancer drug developer’s stock started trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, and dropped a penny to close at $8.99. Luke wrote that the conservative maiden offering for Aveo attests to public investors’ reluctance toward biotech companies.
—Venture investors, on the other had, showed a bit of enthusiasm. Genetix Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge developer of gene therapies, pulled in a $35 million Series B round that
