We saw a mix of headlines on early funding rounds, business plan competitions, and acquisitions from startups in the software, mobile hardware, Internet, energy, and biotech sectors.
—Cambridge, MA-based Sand 9, a maker of tiny timer and frequency control technology for wireless devices, said it secured a $12 million Series B financing, led by new investor Commonwealth Capital Ventures. The company, developing a resonator that could make devices such as GPS units, mobile phones, and wireless routers smaller and more integrated, previously raised an $8 million round that included backing from Flybridge Capital Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Khosla Ventures.
—General Compression, a Newton, MA-based maker of compressor systems for storing wind energy, brought its Series A financing total to $20.9 million, with an additional $3 million from the Northwater Intellectual Property Fund. The earlier part of the Series A round included investments from Duke Energy and U.S. Renewables Group.
—C-Crete nabbed $100,000 as the winner of MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The team, led by MIT civil engineering PhD candidate Rouzbeh Shahsavari, is developing a nanoengineered form of concrete that emits less carbon dioxide in the production process, and is cheaper and stronger than the traditional form of the building material. C-Crete lost earlier in the week in MIT’s Clean Energy Prize, where Stanford University team C3Nano took home $200,000 for its work in photovoltaic solar panels.
—-Cambridge-based LocaModa, which makes place-based social media software, raised $150,000 of a planned $1.5 million offering of equity, debts, and rights, an SEC filing revealed. The company had previously
