Category: Boston

Intellia Therapeutics Obtains $15,000,000 Series A Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=18c573e0-1eec-4918-9e05-59ff0bcd38f2 Date 11/19/2014 Company Name Intellia Therapeutics Mailing Address 130 Brookline Street Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Company Description Intellia Therapeutic’s core mission is to lead the industry in therapeutic gene editing, utilizing the promise of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. We are solely focused on the research and clinical development of gene editing therapies … Continue reading “Intellia Therapeutics Obtains $15,000,000 Series A Funding Round”

Dispatch Garners $3,100,000 Seed Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=02088add-38b1-4a96-99ca-c2dff055a8ab Date 11/19/2014 Company Name Dispatch Mailing Address 170 Milk Street 2nd Floor Boston, MA 02109 USA Company Description Dispatch provides enterprises with a mobile extension for their existing systems and offers a self-serve set of products and APIs for marketplaces and developers. Website http://www.dispatch.me Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $3,100,000 … Continue reading “Dispatch Garners $3,100,000 Seed Funding”

Avedro Lands $6,500,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=3dd37f32-2929-4301-a701-c395613605bc Date 11/19/2014 Company Name Avedro Mailing Address 230 Third Avenue Waltham, MA 02451 USA Company Description Avedro’s Keraflex is not laser eye surgery – it is a non-incisional, non-invasive procedure currently under clinical study for the correction of myopia and the treatment of keratoconus. Unlike LASIK and other laser vision correction … Continue reading “Avedro Lands $6,500,000 New Funding”

Pluralsight Acquires Smarterer for $75,000,000

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=bd1e2488-220b-42b4-b21c-1b0cd30910e1 Date 11/19/2014 Company Name Smarterer Mailing Address 500 Harrison Ave. Boston, MA 02118 USA Company Description Smarterer provides crowd-sourced tests that allow you to get scored and ranked on digital, social, and technical tools. Scores can be shared for reputation, competition, and fun. Add questions to improve your score. Website http://www.smarterer.com … Continue reading “Pluralsight Acquires Smarterer for $75,000,000”

Déjà Vu for Agios as Second Drug Shines in Small Blood Cancer Study

Agios Pharmaceuticals turned heads in April when it showed its first drug prospect might be able to treat a devastating blood cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), in people who have a specific genetic mutation. It was the first shred of validation, in humans, for Agios’s work in a raw field of oncology—cancer metabolism—and the company’s … Continue reading “Déjà Vu for Agios as Second Drug Shines in Small Blood Cancer Study”

Inside QD Vision’s Quantum Dot Factory For Making Vivid TV Colors

In an unassuming two-story building in a bland office park in suburban Boston, an MIT spinout is producing material to make beautiful TV images. On Tuesday, QD Vision received the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from EPA officials for the company’s environmentally benign process of making a type of crystal semiconductor called quantum dots. Its … Continue reading “Inside QD Vision’s Quantum Dot Factory For Making Vivid TV Colors”

Baird Capital Raises $185M for 4th VC Fund, Beating Target

Baird Capital says it has raised $185 million for its fourth venture capital fund, exceeding the $150 million target it set when it began courting investors in February. The fourth VC fund is Baird’s largest to date. That’s likely a bit of welcome news for Midwest startups, where venture capital is harder to come by. … Continue reading “Baird Capital Raises $185M for 4th VC Fund, Beating Target”

Home-Assistant Startup Alfred Launches, Paying—Gasp!—Real Wages

What do you do for an encore after your big public debut is widely mocked in the press? For local home-service startup Alfred, the answer is apparently to keep plugging along with your launch plans. A sense of humor helps, too. After all, Alfred is a subscription service that lets people pay $99 month to … Continue reading “Home-Assistant Startup Alfred Launches, Paying—Gasp!—Real Wages”

John Maeda Talks Leadership, Learning, and Legacy From RISD to KPCB

What do you do after running one of the world’s most prestigious art schools? If you’re John Maeda, you dive into venture capital and startups—and find that the world moves even faster than you thought. Maeda, 48, is a computer scientist, author, and graphic designer who was president of the Rhode Island School of Design … Continue reading “John Maeda Talks Leadership, Learning, and Legacy From RISD to KPCB”

With Atlas Cash and Berkeley Tools, Intellia Joins the CRISPR Fray

Add another entrant to the race toward what might be called Gene Therapy 2.0. Atlas Venture and the research arm of the drug giant Novartis (NYSE: [[ticker:NVS]]) have put $15 million into the Series A round for Intellia Therapeutics, which is emerging today from stealth after two years of incubation. The Cambridge, MA, startup will … Continue reading “With Atlas Cash and Berkeley Tools, Intellia Joins the CRISPR Fray”

Breaking Bottlenecks, Opening the Floodgates to Genomic Data

There is a major transformational step underway for managing the growing amount of human genomic data. To date, the focus has been on amassing databanks of genomes and then developing new tools to analyze this information. In essence, the emphasis has been on breaking bottlenecks for analyzing the data. Now, there is an opportunity to … Continue reading “Breaking Bottlenecks, Opening the Floodgates to Genomic Data”

Teespring Obtains $35,000,000 New Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=396432e2-2ce0-4760-becd-2a7515b6b97f Date 11/18/2014 Company Name Teespring Mailing Address 3 Davol Square Providence, RI 02903 USA Company Description Teespring allows you to create & sell custom tees with zero upfront costs, and zero risk. Create & sell t-shirts online the easy way. No paying thousands of dollars upfront, no guessing how many shirts … Continue reading “Teespring Obtains $35,000,000 New Funding Round”

BriefCam Receives $562,500 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=635ee701-079e-45e1-b9f3-65c5dfa6a0b1 Date 11/18/2014 Company Name BriefCam Mailing Address 406 Farmington Ave Farmington, CT 06032 USA Company Description BriefCam for efficient, timely and effective video review. Right now, millions of cameras around the world are recording video. To date, most video could never be reviewed. With BriefCam, users can browse hours of video … Continue reading “BriefCam Receives $562,500 New Financing”

New Research Could (Finally) Remove RNAi’s Commercial Limitations

[Corrected 11/17/14, 12:30pm. See below.] If nothing else, the acronym RNAi, which stands for ribonucleic acid interference, should be familiar to biotech observers as something that won two researchers the Nobel Prize in 2006, and that a few companies have tried to turn into drugs. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]) is the most well-known. But in … Continue reading “New Research Could (Finally) Remove RNAi’s Commercial Limitations”

Juno, Less Than a Year Old, Lines up IPO to Fund Cancer Work

Few biotech startups have burst onto the scene like Juno Therapeutics. The Seattle company secured $310 million in private financing in less than a year, budding out of cancer immunotherapy work at three of the nation’s premier cancer centers in New York and Seattle. With that type of momentum, it was only a matter of … Continue reading “Juno, Less Than a Year Old, Lines up IPO to Fund Cancer Work”

Investors Double Down on InsightSquared and Business Analytics

Business intelligence is coming to the masses—and one local company is cashing in. InsightSquared hasn’t “squared” its money yet, but it has doubled it. The Cambridge, MA, software startup has closed a $13.5 million Series C funding round that matches its total raised previously. The new money comes from Atlas Venture, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, NextView … Continue reading “Investors Double Down on InsightSquared and Business Analytics”

Rosie the Maid 2.0: Savioke Builds a Hotel Delivery Robot

Robots have long been cast as human helpers in movies and the public imagination. Now delivery robots are becoming a reality—so long as the robots stay indoors. The Aloft Hotel in Palo Alto, CA, is now employing a robot from Silicon Valley startup Savioke to deliver small items from the front desk to rooms. By … Continue reading “Rosie the Maid 2.0: Savioke Builds a Hotel Delivery Robot”

indico Garners $3,000,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=128b3663-33f2-4233-b8e5-7cc1fd416ed4 Date 11/17/2014 Company Name indico Mailing Address 1000 Olin Way Needham, MA 02492 USA Company Description indico takes the burden of curating datasets off your back we know you prefer working on models to painstakingly cleaning data sets, leave it to us. sometimes accuracy just doesn’t cut it indico gives you … Continue reading “indico Garners $3,000,000 New Financing”

InsightSquared Secures $13,500,000 Series C Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=292ebd01-3dc7-46d9-8d79-a15b0f6e404c Date 11/17/2014 Company Name InsightSquared Mailing Address 160 Second Street Cambridge, MA 02142 USA Company Description InsightSquared is the best data intelligence software designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses(SMBs). Website http://www.insightsquared.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $13,500,000 Transaction Round Series C Proceeds Purposes The new funding will help InsightSquared … Continue reading “InsightSquared Secures $13,500,000 Series C Financing Round”

Celldex Touts Brain Cancer Vaccine Data, Talks FDA Strategy

It’s notoriously tough to develop just about anything that helps patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, live longer. It’s just as hard to develop a vaccine that provides any sort of benefit to cancer patients. Yet Hampton, NJ- and Needham, MA-based Celldex Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CLDX]]) is providing some data today indicating that it just … Continue reading “Celldex Touts Brain Cancer Vaccine Data, Talks FDA Strategy”

As Rival Sputters, FibroGen Heads to Nasdaq Via $146M IPO

When it comes to raising money from public investors, timing is everything. And it certainly didn’t hurt San Francisco-based FibroGen’s IPO pitch when one of its rivals released some data that spooked Wall Street investors a few weeks ago. FibroGen is debuting on Nasdaq today under the ticker symbol “FGEN” after pricing 8.1 million shares … Continue reading “As Rival Sputters, FibroGen Heads to Nasdaq Via $146M IPO”

East Coast Biotech Roundup: Regeneron, Sage, Tara, Alnylam, & More

The autumn chill has hit New York and Boston, which means one big thing for biotech: conference season is underway. Data are starting to pour in from a variety of scientific meetings, and much more is coming, as companies look to end the year or start 2015 with a bang. We’ve got those stories and … Continue reading “East Coast Biotech Roundup: Regeneron, Sage, Tara, Alnylam, & More”

CardioFocus Secures $2,300,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=bd4c6e73-ebea-4b16-a030-2fab3155cef7 Date 11/14/2014 Company Name CardioFocus Mailing Address 500 Nickerson Road Marlborough, MA 01752 USA Company Description CardioFocus, Inc. is a privately held medical device company based in Maynard, Massachusetts. The company is developing, manufacturing and marketing proprietary, disposable fiber optic catheters for the visualization of the cardiac anatomy and the treatment … Continue reading “CardioFocus Secures $2,300,000 New Financing”

Blueprint Medicines Lands $50,000,000 New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=2ee0b85f-7140-4727-a41c-34c9bebf131e Date 11/14/2014 Company Name Blueprint Medicines Mailing Address 215 First Street Cambridge, MA 02142 USA Company Description Blueprint Medicines is driving the development of personalized, highly-selective cancer therapies that harness the growing understanding of the molecular blueprint of cancer. Website http://www.blueprintmedicines.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $50,000,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed … Continue reading “Blueprint Medicines Lands $50,000,000 New Financing Round”

iQuartic Lands $449,996 New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=2cbe869b-f7d5-40ca-bb88-5c01b6dd56f4 Date 11/14/2014 Company Name iQuartic Mailing Address 1 Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 USA Company Description Our Cambridge, MA company is building technology to network and mine healthcare (esp. EHR) data systems. Our tool is ideal for generating high end EHR analytics for risk profiling, disease management, and quality benchmarking. We … Continue reading “iQuartic Lands $449,996 New Financing Round”

Allena Pharmaceuticals Receives $25,000,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=5de723d9-5ec9-4e39-a1b9-f8a4817980be Date 11/14/2014 Company Name Allena Pharmaceuticals Mailing Address One Newton Executive Park Newton, MA 02462 USA Company Description Allena Pharmaceuticals is developing and commercializing non-systemic protein therapeutics to treat metabolic and orphan diseases, with a particular focus on nephrologic and urologic conditions. Website http://www.allenapharma.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $25,000,000 … Continue reading “Allena Pharmaceuticals Receives $25,000,000 New Funding”

Symbiota Obtains $7,500,000 Series A Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=55945d72-fa73-4f7f-8db2-671674db23e8 Date 11/14/2014 Company Name Symbiota Mailing Address 100 Edwin H. Land Blvd. Cambridge, MA 02142 USA Company Description Symbiota is pioneering microbial solutions for Symbiotic Agriculture—a new approach to naturally improve plant health and growth by promoting a healthy microbiome. Website http://www.symbiotabio.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $7,500,000 Transaction Round … Continue reading “Symbiota Obtains $7,500,000 Series A Financing Round”

Tech Agenda 2015: The Details on Our 12/2 Innovation Conference

We’ve been hard at work recruiting speakers and putting together a power-packed program for our latest tech event in Boston, and we’re finally ready to show it off—just in time for you to save $100 off the regular ticket price. We’re calling this conference The Tech Agenda 2015 because we believe the experts we’ve assembled will give … Continue reading “Tech Agenda 2015: The Details on Our 12/2 Innovation Conference”

Ballmer Pumps Life into Boston Tech Ecosystem with Harvard Grant

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, only months after becoming an NBA owner, is further flexing his philanthropic muscles. On Thursday, he said he will bankroll a 50 percent increase in computer science faculty at Harvard University. Ballmer, who graduated from Harvard in 1977, is announcing the initiative today at Harvard’s Innovation Lab (iLab), a three-year … Continue reading “Ballmer Pumps Life into Boston Tech Ecosystem with Harvard Grant”

Brain Corporation Builds BrainOS to Train and Democratize Robots

If you took apart a smartphone, you’d have many of the components needed to build a consumer robot: a low-power processor, software to run it, and an array of sensors. Qualcomm-backed Brain Corporation has turned the electronic guts of a phone into a foundation for making consumer robots, adding brain-inspired software to quickly program them. The … Continue reading “Brain Corporation Builds BrainOS to Train and Democratize Robots”

7AC Technologies Obtains $1,250,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=ebfb7647-a195-4381-960a-da3e599899f5 Date 11/13/2014 Company Name 7AC Technologies Mailing Address 100 Cummings Center Beverly, MA 01915 USA Company Description 7AC Technologies, Inc. develops revolutionary Ultra Efficient Liquid Desiccant HVAC systems for Commercial and Industrial (C&I) buildings delivering a 50%+ reduction in energy costs over conventional HVAC units. Website http://www.7actech.com Transaction Type Debt Transaction … Continue reading “7AC Technologies Obtains $1,250,000 New Financing”

TeleTech, Humanify Hope to Bring Customer Service into Mobile Age

Think back to the last time you tried to fix something around the house that broke unexpectedly. What did you do? Maybe you searched Google and YouTube and found some articles or videos. One or two might have been helpful. You might have searched a manufacturer’s website for a product manual or FAQ, and if … Continue reading “TeleTech, Humanify Hope to Bring Customer Service into Mobile Age”

Bikes, Bitcoin, and the Next Billion: Techstars Boston Diversifies

Techstars has become something of a startup institution, now operating in 15 cities. The tech accelerator can still hold a surprise or two, though. At the program’s eighth demo day in Boston—has it really been that many?—an increasingly international flavor was on display. Founders hailed from Croatia, France, Russia, Hong Kong, the U.K., and Australia, … Continue reading “Bikes, Bitcoin, and the Next Billion: Techstars Boston Diversifies”

Servier Inks $1B Deal for Intarcia’s Implantable Diabetes Device

It’s been a big year for Intarcia Therapeutics. The Boston- and Hayward, CA-based firm raised a massive round of private financing for its experimental drug/device combo treatment for Type 2 diabetes, and then followed that up with some encouraging data in late-stage clinical trials. Now, with that product, ITCA 650, potentially just a few years … Continue reading “Servier Inks $1B Deal for Intarcia’s Implantable Diabetes Device”

Next-Gen Network Monitoring: The Missing Piece of the Security Puzzle

If 2014 has taught us anything, it’s that IT security is falling behind the threats against which it is supposed to protect, and the gap is widening quickly. From data breaches at major retailers to serious zero-day vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed and Shellshock, the events of the last 12 months have caused everyone with an … Continue reading “Next-Gen Network Monitoring: The Missing Piece of the Security Puzzle”

With Wires and Electrodes, Tara Bio Builds a Heart on a Chip

It’s been pretty clear for some time that there’s a big need to improve the efficiency of drug R&D. By industry’s count, drugs cost over $1 billion to develop, and most of them fail. A big reason why is the preclinical studies in petri dishes and animals don’t accurately predict how a drug will behave … Continue reading “With Wires and Electrodes, Tara Bio Builds a Heart on a Chip”

Lowering the Cost of Failure in Biopharmaceuticals

In any business, projects fail, but in biopharmaceuticals, the consequences of failure are especially damaging. Projects in the industry tend to be long and expensive—from clinical trials to regulatory approvals to commercial application. At any point in the process, obstacles can derail a project. Failure is most certainly an option, and for companies with many … Continue reading “Lowering the Cost of Failure in Biopharmaceuticals”

New and Old Models in Grocery Delivery, and Guilt About Good Jobs

I’m not really the kind of person who wants to use a grocery-delivery service. I’m glad they’re available, especially for people who might have trouble navigating the aisles of their local supermarket. But while I’m able-bodied, I figure I should really be able to drag myself to the store and buy my own groceries. Then … Continue reading “New and Old Models in Grocery Delivery, and Guilt About Good Jobs”

As Huge Bills Loom, Immunotherapy Pioneer Dendreon Enters Bankruptcy

After 22 years, one groundbreaking cancer treatment, and even more ups and downs than the volatile biotech industry would consider normal, Seattle-based Dendreon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DNDN]]) has filed for bankruptcy. The company and its prostate-cancer treatment sipuleucel-T (Provenge) could be sold, or it could emerge from bankruptcy court with completely new ownership. From a reading of … Continue reading “As Huge Bills Loom, Immunotherapy Pioneer Dendreon Enters Bankruptcy”

Stemina’s Autism Blood Test Shows Early Promise, Has Lots to Prove

In the latest attempt to find a better method for diagnosing autism, researchers at Madison, WI-based Stemina Biomarker Discovery and the University of California-Davis’ Mind Institute published study results Friday of an early-stage, blood-based test that they say identified autistic children with 81 percent accuracy. The study, published in PLOS One, tested blood samples taken … Continue reading “Stemina’s Autism Blood Test Shows Early Promise, Has Lots to Prove”

From Bluetooth Gloves to Teaching Robots: Gadgets at Expand NY

For folks who want free hands while operating mobile devices, the team at Easier to Use hopes the GoGlove will be the right fit. I met Easier to Use co-founder Ben Harris over the weekend at Engadget Expand New York, a technology show held at the Javits Center. GoGlove is equipped to remotely control Bluetooth-enabled devices such … Continue reading “From Bluetooth Gloves to Teaching Robots: Gadgets at Expand NY”

DMI Diagnostic Device Wins Grand Prize in Nokia Sensing XPrize

The XPrize Foundation returned to San Diego today to announce that a team led by Eugene Y. Chan of the DNA Medicine Institute (DMI) in Cambridge, MA, is the winner of the second $525,000 grand prize in the Nokia Sensing XPrize Challenge. X Prize founder and chairman Peter Diamandis and Nokia CTO Henry Tirri announced … Continue reading “DMI Diagnostic Device Wins Grand Prize in Nokia Sensing XPrize”

Xconomy Healthcare Summit Nov. 18: Last Chance to Request Invite

Health is a function of genetics, the environment, and what we do with our lives. Everyone knows that. But increasingly the tools are being developed to take more control of all of the above, dramatically affecting what is possible in living longer and healthier lives, even in the face of a previously debilitating illness. Getting … Continue reading “Xconomy Healthcare Summit Nov. 18: Last Chance to Request Invite”

Sage’s Drug For Rare Epilepsy Shows Promise in Small Study

Sage Therapeutics isn’t the company its founders originally intended. Third Rock Ventures started Sage in 2011 to develop drugs for big neurological disorders such as schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury. Along the way, however, the Cambridge, MA-based company decided to focus on rare neurological disorders that could be moved quickly through the clinic. That switch … Continue reading “Sage’s Drug For Rare Epilepsy Shows Promise in Small Study”

NV Bots Bets on Schools for Sales of Cloud-Connected 3D Printer

AJ Perez is a young startup executive who thinks about the long term. As the CEO of New Valence Robotics (NVBots), he’s targeting the company’s 3D printers at schools—not known as big spenders on emerging technology—with an eye towards the next generation of designers. It’s an unconventional approach, but it could help the year-old company … Continue reading “NV Bots Bets on Schools for Sales of Cloud-Connected 3D Printer”

Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Accessing Unaffordable Science Journals

If you work in academia or in Big Pharma, you likely have easy access to the world’s scientific literature. Outside of these places, however, obtaining affordable access to the latest scientific journals is much more problematic. This includes scientists at all but the largest biopharma companies, doctors and other health care professionals, and people wanting … Continue reading “Beg, Borrow, or Steal: Accessing Unaffordable Science Journals”

What Early Looks From ASH Tell Us About Cancer Immunotherapy

[Note: Ben Fidler contributed to this report.] Immunotherapy is one of the most promising new ways to fight cancer, and we’ve followed it closely for some time. One of its main proving grounds is in blood-borne cancers, because some of the immunotherapy methods are, at least for now, easier to target in that direction. That’s … Continue reading “What Early Looks From ASH Tell Us About Cancer Immunotherapy”

How a Big Company Can Run Fast, Like a Startup

What does the word “startup” mean to you? Many words can come to mind: new, exciting, experimental, small, lean, agile, fast. To me, “startup” mostly makes me think of “agile” and “fast.” In an early stage startup, everybody is focused on the same thing. People are passionate, enthusiastic, hungry for an opportunity to change the … Continue reading “How a Big Company Can Run Fast, Like a Startup”