Category: San Francisco

Codexis Morphs From Big Science Project Into $100M Business

Enzymes make the world go around, if you spend much time listening to biochemists. Now one of the emerging players in the business of engineering industrial enzymes, Redwood City, CA-based Codexis, is starting to show it can make those biological workhorse proteins into something else important—money. Codexis (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CDXS]]) made headlines back in April when … Continue reading “Codexis Morphs From Big Science Project Into $100M Business”

PacBio Raises $200M Through IPO for Fast, Cheap Gene Sequencing Tools

Pacific Biosciences found a pretty strong appetite from investors who want a piece of the future of super-fast, cheap genomic sequencing. Menlo Park, CA-based PacBio has raised $200 million through its initial public offering, settling on a price of $16 a share, smack in the middle of its $15 to $17 expected range. The deal … Continue reading “PacBio Raises $200M Through IPO for Fast, Cheap Gene Sequencing Tools”

NextSpace Shows a New Way to Work

In 2009, in the depth of the recession, Rebecca Brian and Jamie Capozzi both found themselves working at home, trying to keep their marketing and branding agencies afloat. They felt isolated and distracted, and as they looked around, they saw that they weren’t the only ones. “It was the year of the contractor,” says Capozzi, … Continue reading “NextSpace Shows a New Way to Work”

RingCentral Secures $9,999,995 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=2d71e151-3958-41b1-8d11-189fec5ad5ff&Preview=1 Date 10/27/2010 Company Name RingCentral Mailing Address 999 Baker Way, Fifth Floor San Mateo, CA 94404 Company Description RingCentral provides cloud computing based business phone systems designed for today’s mobile and distributed business world. Website http://www.ringcentral.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $9,999,995 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Proceeds purposes were … Continue reading “RingCentral Secures $9,999,995 New Funding Round”

Napo Pharmaceuticals Receives $3,360,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=52f69169-d4a0-4d31-9203-312cdb8a42c1&Preview=1 Date 10/27/2010 Company Name Napo Pharmaceuticals Mailing Address 250 East Grand Avenue South San Francisco, CA 94080 Company Description Napo Pharmaceuticals focuses on the development and commercialization of proprietary pharmaceuticals for the global marketplace in collaboration with local partners. Our strategy is to focus both on higher-volume business in the emerging … Continue reading “Napo Pharmaceuticals Receives $3,360,000 New Financing”

uCirrus Lands $4,000,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=645734cd-7522-495a-90f4-ff7364b98f5a&Preview=1 Date 10/27/2010 Company Name uCirrus Mailing Address 1500 Fashion Island Blvd. San Mateo, CA 94404 Company Description The company is developing massively parallel processing technology for real-time search, Web acceleration and cloud computing applications. Website http://www.uCirrus.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $4,000,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes The new investment … Continue reading “uCirrus Lands $4,000,000 New Funding”

XORA Secures New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=5747db32-ea9e-49b5-a698-d0869ec60fa4&Preview=1 Date 10/27/2010 Company Name XORA Mailing Address 1890 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 Company Description The company’s SaaS (software-as-a-service) model makes it simple and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes to realize an instant return on investment. Website http://www.xora.com Transaction Type Debt Transaction Amount Undisclosed Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds … Continue reading “XORA Secures New Financing Round”

Endologix Acquires Nellix for $54,000,000

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=ff8a7b66-9202-4403-ae4b-d81ace17c7ef&Preview=1 Date 10/27/2010 Company Name Nellix Mailing Address 2465-B Faber Place Palo Alto, CA 94303 Company Description Nellix has developed a revolutionary, percutaneously deliverable endograft for the treatment of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms and Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms. This aortic endograft device and treatment fills the aneurysm, providing a highly stable and durable seal. … Continue reading “Endologix Acquires Nellix for $54,000,000”

Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 calls itself “The leading conference and expo for organizations using collaborative technologies to accelerate information flow and drive revenue.” From the event website: “The way we work is changing rapidly, offering an enormous competitive advantage to those who embrace the new tools that enable contextual, agile and simplified information exchange and collaboration to … Continue reading “Enterprise 2.0”

Competitors Claim ITA Acquisition Would Give Google an Unfair Advantage in Travel Search

[Updated, see page 2] Quite a few online travel-info companies—FareCompare, Fly.com, Hotwire, Kayak, Sidestep, TripAdvisor, and Orbitz, to name a few—get their airline fare and seat availability information from a vast real-time database called QPX, the creation of Cambridge, MA-based ITA Software. Even search engines like Bing rely on QPX for flight data. So it … Continue reading “Competitors Claim ITA Acquisition Would Give Google an Unfair Advantage in Travel Search”

Hospitals Should Embrace What They Learned In Kindergarten

I have been intrigued by numerous articles written recently on how hospital administrators are looking to other industries to learn how to adopt processes to reduce errors and improve quality of care. One recent example is that of hospitals learning from the manufacturing sector and adopting their lean manufacturing techniques to improve the efficient flow … Continue reading “Hospitals Should Embrace What They Learned In Kindergarten”

Pelican Snaps Up $10M

Pelican Imaging in Mountain View announced a $10 million Series B round led by Globespan Capital Partners, with participation from previous investors Granite Ventures, InterWest Partners and In-Q-Tel. Pelican makes optics, sensors and software algorithms for smart phone cameras, enabling a thinner camera with higher quality images, and will use the new money to commercialize … Continue reading “Pelican Snaps Up $10M”

Cloudera Collects $25M

Cloudera in Palo Alto, CA, announced a $25 million Series C round today led by Meritech Capital Partners, with participation from current investors Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. Cloudera is commercializing the open source platform Hadoop, which supports very large file systems like Amazon S3 and allows applications to work with and analyze petabytes of … Continue reading “Cloudera Collects $25M”

Complete Genomics Sets IPO Price Range

Complete Genomics, the low-cost gene sequencing company in Mountain View, CA, has set a goal of pricing 6 million shares in its initial public offering at a price of $12 to $14, according to a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If the company can find demand from investors at the top of … Continue reading “Complete Genomics Sets IPO Price Range”

Nanosys Ups E Round to $31M

Palo Alto, CA-based Nanosys, which said in August that it had raised $25 million in Series E financing from new investor Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and existing investors Arch Venture Partners, El Dorado Ventures, Polaris Venture Capital, and Venrock, announced a “second and final close” of the round today at $31 million. No additional investors were … Continue reading “Nanosys Ups E Round to $31M”

ThingMagic-Trimble Deal a “Desired Outcome,” and a Next Stage for RFID and GPS Technologies

Yesterday’s acquisition of Cambridge, MA, technology firm ThingMagic by Silicon Valley-based Trimble (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TRMB]]) left a lot of people in the radio frequency identification (RFID) and location-based tech sectors wanting to know more. I spoke with both companies late in the day to get some answers. Overall it sounds like a fairly standard acquisition that … Continue reading “ThingMagic-Trimble Deal a “Desired Outcome,” and a Next Stage for RFID and GPS Technologies”

Ablexis Cuts Deal With Pfizer, Four Other Pharmas, For Antibody Drug Discovery Tool

Ablexis didn’t force its investors to wait very long to see some returns. The San Francisco-based biotech company is announcing today it has struck an unusual deal to provide its antibody drug discovery technology to five big drugmakers simultaneously, as an alternative way to generate returns without waiting around for the unlikely event of an … Continue reading “Ablexis Cuts Deal With Pfizer, Four Other Pharmas, For Antibody Drug Discovery Tool”

OhLife’s Daily E-Mails Motivate a New Wave of Online Diarists

This is the ninth in a series of profiles of companies funded this summer by Paul Graham’s Y Combinator startup incubator in Mountain View, CA. Dear Diary, This will be the last time I write in you. Your crisp pages and smooth leather cover have comforted me through many lonely nights. But I’ve found someone … Continue reading “OhLife’s Daily E-Mails Motivate a New Wave of Online Diarists”

Zuberance Lands $8,000,000 Series B Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=c445d32c-4aba-4dda-aba6-3aa6bc72dea5&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Zuberance Mailing Address 628 El Camino Real San Carlos, CA 94070 Company Description Zuberance is an enterprise social commerce software company with a ground-breaking, on-demand Customer Salesforce Solution that turns loyal customers into a Volunteer Salesforce. Zuberance enables companies to identify their highly-satisfied customers and mobilize them … Continue reading “Zuberance Lands $8,000,000 Series B Funding”

Panzura Secures $11,000,000 New Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=b790ea0f-c5c5-4e52-abdd-46f7b1303830&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Panzura Mailing Address 22 Great Oaks Blvd. San Jose, CA 95119 Company Description Panzura is a storage software company whose vision is to enable cloud storage to be faster and more secure than local tier 1 storage. Website http://www.panzura.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $11,000,000 Transaction … Continue reading “Panzura Secures $11,000,000 New Round”

AppMakr Garners $1,000,000 New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=cd7f3cc5-4d1a-4df1-a671-5153f7f70f7a&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name AppMakr Mailing Address 153 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107 Company Description The company provides service that enables users to create an iPhone application quickly and easily. Website http://www.appmakr.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $1,000,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Proceeds purposes were not disclosed. M&A … Continue reading “AppMakr Garners $1,000,000 New Financing Round”

Cloudera Garners $25,000,000 Series C Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=45dd4fcb-b7cc-4059-aae6-85cc3d65a9ab&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Cloudera Mailing Address 1409 Chapin Avenue Third Floor Burlingame, CA 94010 Company Description Cloudera was founded to provide enterprise-level support to users of Apache Hadoop. Our founding team has deep expertise in commercial use of open source software and Hadoop. Website http://www.cloudera.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction … Continue reading “Cloudera Garners $25,000,000 Series C Funding”

Nanosys Garners $6,000,000 Series E Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=47448e2a-3ece-4326-a8e0-95800b1ebc2a&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Nanosys Mailing Address 2625 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94304 Company Description Nanosys Inc. is a leader in the development of nanotechnology-based products utilizing high performance inorganic nanostructures. Website http://www.nanosysinc.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $6,000,000 Transaction Round Series E Proceeds Purposes The company said it … Continue reading “Nanosys Garners $6,000,000 Series E Financing Round”

Pelican Imaging Obtains $10,000,000 Series B Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=b537a307-7126-42ad-a41e-bbdf03fd48bc&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Pelican Imaging Mailing Address 3929 Mainsail Pl Soquel, CA 95073 Company Description The company focused on commercializing computational cameras. Website http://www.pelicanimaging.com/ Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $10,000,000 Transaction Round Series B Proceeds Purposes The round – led by Globespan Capital Partners and joined by Granite Ventures, … Continue reading “Pelican Imaging Obtains $10,000,000 Series B Round”

RapLeaf Receives $15,000,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=34714e2d-72e1-4eb2-bcb6-eddd7dbb7d5a&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name RapLeaf Mailing Address 667 Mission Street, 4th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 Company Description Rapleaf’s goal is to make it more profitable to be ethical. We encourage buyers, sellers, and swappers to rate one another. We also encourage people to endorse their friends. Building a reputation is … Continue reading “RapLeaf Receives $15,000,000 New Funding”

Appcelerator Obtains $9,000,000 Series B Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=458feb60-90b9-4428-92b9-9e31ee6a1ef5&Preview=1 Date 10/26/2010 Company Name Appcelerator Mailing Address 444 Castro Street Mountain View, CA 94041 Company Description Appcelerator is an open source platform for building rich web applications. Appcelerator, Inc. is a silicon valley venture funded company located in Mountain View, California. Appcelerator was started in 2006 by software veterans Jeff Haynie … Continue reading “Appcelerator Obtains $9,000,000 Series B Funding Round”

Trend in Q3 Venture Data From Dow Jones Falls in Line

The quarterly venture capital survey by Dow Jones VentureSource was released earlier today, showing a trend that’s generally in line with data previously reported by CB Insights and The MoneyTree Report. Dow Jones says venture-backed companies in the U.S. raised $5.5 billion in the third quarter—a 5 percent drop in funding from the $5.8 billion … Continue reading “Trend in Q3 Venture Data From Dow Jones Falls in Line”

Zenprise Acquires Sparus

Zenprise, a Fremont, CA-based maker of software that help enterprise manage software on employee’s mobile phones, said today that it has acquired Sparus Software, a company in France that specializes in remote management of business applications on smartphones, tablet computers, card readers, and scanners. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Zenprise collected $9 million … Continue reading “Zenprise Acquires Sparus”

ThingMagic Technology Bought by Location Firm Trimble—Terms and Future Unclear

This is big news for the Boston and MIT startup communities—and maybe for Silicon Valley tech observers too. Cambridge, MA-based ThingMagic said today its technology has been acquired by Trimble (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TRMB]]), a mobile and location tech firm based in Sunnyvale, CA. Terms of the deal weren’t given, and representatives from the companies weren’t immediately … Continue reading “ThingMagic Technology Bought by Location Firm Trimble—Terms and Future Unclear”

$2.5M for GigaOm

Giga Omni Media, owner of the GigaOm blog and a network of other tech blogs, has collected $2.5 million in new financing from existing investor True Ventures, where founder Om Malik is a partner. TechCrunch broke the news Friday, and it was later confirmed in a blog post by Malik, who says the funds will … Continue reading “$2.5M for GigaOm”

RGB Networks Raises $20M

Sunnyvale, CA-based RGB Networks has raised an additional $20 million in equity-based funding, according to an October 21 regulatory filing. The company makes video processors and converters that can deliver video signals to multiple platforms, such as TVs, computers, and mobile devices. RGB previously raised one of the largest venture rounds of the second quarter … Continue reading “RGB Networks Raises $20M”

Evernote Snags Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins Goes Social, Zuckerberg Speaks Out, & More Bay-Area BizTech News

Companies building cloud-based services got lots of attention last week, as did those building social applications. And companies building cloud-based social applications? Watch out! —Evernote, the Mountain View, CA-based online notekeeping service with nearly 5 million users, collected another $20 million in venture backing in a Series C round led by new investor Sequoia Capital. … Continue reading “Evernote Snags Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins Goes Social, Zuckerberg Speaks Out, & More Bay-Area BizTech News”

Antigenics, and its UCSF Champion, Stick With Immune Booster For Brain Cancer

Antigenics could easily have thrown in the towel on its immune boosting therapy for cancer. But now the Lexington, MA-based biotech company, with the help of one of its main backers at UC San Francisco, is gearing up to run a significant trial to see if its lead therapy has a shot as a treatment … Continue reading “Antigenics, and its UCSF Champion, Stick With Immune Booster For Brain Cancer”

RGB Networks Receives $20,000,001 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=50c50e88-2a6f-4c73-81e9-0776cd725cdb&Preview=1 Date 10/25/2010 Company Name RGB Networks Mailing Address 390 West Java Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Company Description RGB Networks delivers extremely high-density, flexible video processing solutions that enable video service providers to deliver highly targeted and personalized video content at considerably lower costs than today’s solutions. Website http://www.rgbnetworks.com Transaction Type Venture … Continue reading “RGB Networks Receives $20,000,001 New Financing”

iCiX Obtains $6,000,000 Series B Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=147fd76b-47cc-4ade-b742-491a7b353c53&Preview=1 Date 10/25/2010 Company Name iCiX Mailing Address 951 Mariners Island Blvd San Mateo, CA 94404 Company Description iCiX is an online Industry Network that harmonizes the way in which companies can store, share and manage documentation, information and communications with other companies that they do business with; easily accurately and constantly. … Continue reading “iCiX Obtains $6,000,000 Series B Funding Round”

JungleCents Secures New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=1452ee6e-f67a-49b7-9433-e169d6869393&Preview=1 Date 10/25/2010 Company Name JungleCents Mailing Address 1000 Marsh Road Menlo Park, CA 94025 Company Description Jungle Cents was formed upon the ideals of being social and innovative. The idea of giving consumers steep discounts for stores that they want to shop at is the basis of the platform. Jungle Cents … Continue reading “JungleCents Secures New Funding Round”

adap.tv Secures $4,549,992 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=b1cf851c-4f01-4578-9acd-b9f4f864ec64&Preview=1 Date 10/25/2010 Company Name adap.tv Mailing Address One Waters Park Drive San Mateo, CA 94403 Company Description adap.tv provides a unique online video advertising platform that allows publishers and advertisers to match relevant advertising with online video content. The company uses advanced technology to analyze the video, audio and metadata to … Continue reading “adap.tv Secures $4,549,992 New Funding Round”

Xconomy Forum: Michael Moritz Unplugged

Michael Moritz, a partner at leading venture firm Sequoia Capital since 1986, has been described as the most powerful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Routinely ranked at or near the top of Forbes’ Midas List of wealth creators, Moritz has led Sequoia’s investments in Google, Yahoo, PayPal, YouTube, Zappos, Kayak, Sugar, and many other companies. … Continue reading “Xconomy Forum: Michael Moritz Unplugged”

Find The Investor of Your Dreams—For Free

There’s all sorts of wisdom about how to find folks to invest in your startup, ranging from the obvious to the slightly stalkerish. Approach investors who’ve supported companies like yours in the past. Go to startup school. Wait until a famous VC is stranded somewhere and give him a lift. In some ways, the most … Continue reading “Find The Investor of Your Dreams—For Free”

Proposition 23: Nothing More Than Misdirection

After giving my best attempt at an objective summary of Proposition 23 to a colleague, he asked rhetorically, “How can something like this even make it onto the ballot?” He was, of course, familiar with the process that allows any proposition that gathers enough signatures to make it to the ballot in, but the question … Continue reading “Proposition 23: Nothing More Than Misdirection”

10 Fantastic Photo Apps for the iPad

The Apple iPad doesn’t have a camera—yet. But it does have a big, beautiful, multi-touch screen. And that makes it one of the best devices ever built for browsing and manipulating images. Mobile app developers have realized this, and have created a profusion of fascinating apps for editing or simply exploring photographs. In fact, there … Continue reading “10 Fantastic Photo Apps for the iPad”

Exelixis Seeks to Exit Doghouse, Sangamo Morphs Into Drugmaker, Siluria Adds $13M, & More Bay Area Life Sciences News

This week we ran a couple of features about Bay Area biotechs known as scientific hothouses, which have been testing the patience of investors who want them to become real drugmakers. —Mike Morrissey, the CEO of South San Francisco-based Exelixis (NASDAQ: [[ticker:EXEL]]), talked about how he’s been trying to get the company “out of the … Continue reading “Exelixis Seeks to Exit Doghouse, Sangamo Morphs Into Drugmaker, Siluria Adds $13M, & More Bay Area Life Sciences News”

GigaOmniMedia Obtains $2,500,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=17295dd7-387f-4b9b-a14e-0f653b80f39a&Preview=1 Date 10/22/2010 Company Name GigaOmniMedia Mailing Address Undisclosed San Francisco, CA 94000 Company Description GigaOmniMedia’s network of sites provide one of the leading daily online news reads for the key influencers in the emerging technology market place. We deliver technology news, analysis and opinions on topics ranging from broadband and online … Continue reading “GigaOmniMedia Obtains $2,500,000 New Funding”

Biogen, Genentech Revamp Alliance

Weston, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]) and South San Francisco-based Genentech said today they are restructuring an alliance to co-develop new antibodies against CD20, the same cellular target of the hit cancer drug rituximab (Rituxan). Under the amended partnership, Genentech will pay the full costs of developing ocrelizumab for multiple sclerosis, and keep most of … Continue reading “Biogen, Genentech Revamp Alliance”

Michael Moritz Unplugged: Jamming with a VC Star at Xconomy’s First San Francisco Event

Michael Moritz, a partner at leading venture firm Sequoia Capital since 1986, has been described as the most powerful venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Routinely ranked at or near the top of Forbes’ Midas List of wealth creators, Moritz has led Sequoia’s investments in Google, Yahoo, PayPal, YouTube, Zappos, Kayak, Sugar, and many other companies. … Continue reading “Michael Moritz Unplugged: Jamming with a VC Star at Xconomy’s First San Francisco Event”

Zoho, Where Engineers Reign, Rewrites the Rules of Office Software

It would be easy to say that Zoho, whose online office productivity software has attracted 3 million users, is the worst nightmare for desktop software makers like Microsoft and even for a newer generation of Software-as-a-Service companies like Salesforce.com. But Zoho is more complicated than that. To figure in its competitor’s nightmares, Zoho would have … Continue reading “Zoho, Where Engineers Reign, Rewrites the Rules of Office Software”