Category: Boston

Betaspring Unveils First Class of Startup Groups in Providence, Plans Micro-Seed Fund Akin to Y Combinator

Ji Kim was able to raise $100,000 in seed financing for his ad software startup Dijipop this summer through connections he gained in a new program called Betaspring, which was launched this year to support young entrepreneurs in Providence, RI, in their quest to form technology- and design-oriented startups. Dijipop was one of the seven … Continue reading “Betaspring Unveils First Class of Startup Groups in Providence, Plans Micro-Seed Fund Akin to Y Combinator”

The Webloyalty Settlement: A Great Graphic Lesson in Marketing Practices

Yesterday morning, Wade wrote a story about the recent settlement agreement in a class-action lawsuit involving Connecticut-based Webloyalty, which runs various discount programs offered to consumers as they wrap up e-commerce transactions. The case involved allegations that Webloyalty violated state and federal laws by failing to disclose some details about its offerings, such as the … Continue reading “The Webloyalty Settlement: A Great Graphic Lesson in Marketing Practices”

RockPort Ups Investment in Think

Think, the Oslo, Norway-based startup developing long-range electric vehicles, announced yesterday that it has exited bankruptcy protection and raised $47 in new funding, with cleantech venture firm RockPort Capital Partners of Boston as one of the return investors. New investors in the round included New York-based lithium ion battery developer Ener1 (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HEV]]), Finland’s Valmet … Continue reading “RockPort Ups Investment in Think”

TheFunded to Bring Startup “Training Camp” to San Diego—Eyeing Other Cities From Seattle to Boston to Paris

The inaugural class of the TheFunded Founder Institute, a San Francisco-based training camp for startup CEOs, isn’t graduating until Sept. 8—but the institute’s founder, Bay Area serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi, is already expanding the program to San Diego and elsewhere. Ressi, who previously founded the VC rating site TheFunded and operates the institute as an … Continue reading “TheFunded to Bring Startup “Training Camp” to San Diego—Eyeing Other Cities From Seattle to Boston to Paris”

Heartland Robotics Lands $7M, Gloucester Pharma Gets $29M, Biopure Auctioned Away for $4M, & More Boston Deals News

There were good, bad, and ugly deals in New England’s technology and life sciences sectors this past week. Yet there are more highlights and lowlights. You can judge under which of those three categories (good, bad, ugly) the following deals fall: —Wade did some digging in the SEC database last Friday to report that Cambridge, … Continue reading “Heartland Robotics Lands $7M, Gloucester Pharma Gets $29M, Biopure Auctioned Away for $4M, & More Boston Deals News”

iWalk Garners $20,000,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=a6c62a6a-2527-4cb3-aeed-2efef7897a6f&Preview=1 Date 8/28/2009 Company Name iWalk Mailing Address 222 Third Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Company Description iWalk’s Mission is to be the leader in wearable devices for human augmentation. Website http://www.iwalkpro.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $20,000,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Proceeds purposes were not disclosed. M&A Terms Venture Investor … Continue reading “iWalk Garners $20,000,000 New Financing”

Xconomy Had a Bad Internet Day—But We’re Up and Running Again

Fingers crossed—it looks like we finally have our site back up and running. Most stories reposted, most lost comments restored. It has been a long, not-so-fun day here at Xconomy. Our site crashed around 11:30 am EDT and we didn’t get things back up and running until some eight or nine hours later. We have … Continue reading “Xconomy Had a Bad Internet Day—But We’re Up and Running Again”

Daktari Diagnostics and BL Healthcare Find Early Investors: More Signs of Life for Medtech Startups

Here are two reasons to believe that there are investors out there willing to make a bet on your young startup: BL Healthcare and Daktari Diagnostics, both of which reported in SEC documents over the past few days that they’ve raised private capital. Formed last year, Daktari appears to be the younger of the two … Continue reading “Daktari Diagnostics and BL Healthcare Find Early Investors: More Signs of Life for Medtech Startups”

Webloyalty Customers Eligible for Payments Under Class-Action Settlement

Back in 2007, Xconomy ran a story by freelance contributor Seth Shulman about a class-action lawsuit unfolding against Norwalk, CT-based Webloyalty, an online marketing company. The comment section of that story became something of a clearinghouse for ongoing complaints against Webloyalty, which runs many of the discount programs pitched to consumers as they are finishing … Continue reading “Webloyalty Customers Eligible for Payments Under Class-Action Settlement”

Should Cloud Computing Startups Beware Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud? No, Says Cloudswitch

Sometimes I worry too much about the fortunes of local technology startups. It usually turns out that they can take care of themselves. When I saw Amazon’s announcement yesterday about its new “Virtual Private Cloud” service—which is intended to make it easier for enterprises with expensive, existing data centers to tap into Amazon’s own, less … Continue reading “Should Cloud Computing Startups Beware Amazon’s Virtual Private Cloud? No, Says Cloudswitch”

Biogen Idec Research Boss Quits Board, Giving Icahn Shot at Pushing R&D Agenda

[Update: 8:20 pm Eastern time with Biogen comments] One of the Biogen Idec executives who was criticized earlier this year for displaying “failed leadership,” in the words of billionaire investor Carl Icahn, is resigning from the company’s board after an earlier pledge to keep the seat. Cecil Pickett, Biogen’s president of research and development, will … Continue reading “Biogen Idec Research Boss Quits Board, Giving Icahn Shot at Pushing R&D Agenda”

Genocea, Attracting Merck and Wyeth Vaccine Gurus, Pushes New Immunizations to Clinic

Vaccines get the credit for some of the biggest public health gains of the past century, but they are notoriously tough to develop. The required clinical trials take years, cost many millions, and even the slightest safety warning will attract droves of litigators. That’s all for a product that can’t usually command monopoly prices, like, … Continue reading “Genocea, Attracting Merck and Wyeth Vaccine Gurus, Pushes New Immunizations to Clinic”

Resolvyx Nails Dry Eye Trial, Gloucester Pulls in $29M, Shire Beefs Up Mass Presence, & Other Boston-Area Life Sciences News

News flow was light this week, so it was a good time for biotechies to rest up and get ready for the usual fall frenzy of investor conferences and medical meetings. But one local startup had a breakout moment in clinical trials, and another raised a pile of cash. —Bedford, MA-based Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals aimed high … Continue reading “Resolvyx Nails Dry Eye Trial, Gloucester Pulls in $29M, Shire Beefs Up Mass Presence, & Other Boston-Area Life Sciences News”

Genzyme Rival Gets Another FDA Break

Protalix BioTherapeutics, the Israel-based biotech company, said today it has received “fast-track” status with the FDA for its experimental drug for Gaucher’s disease. The designation allows the company (AMEX: [[ticker:PLX]]) to submit pieces of information for its new drug application as they become available, rather than waiting for everything to be finalized, and gives the … Continue reading “Genzyme Rival Gets Another FDA Break”

Quick Hit Will Let Players Pit Football Skills Against Legendary NFL Coaches

Even if you were a coach in the National Football League, you’d never get a chance to test your tactics on the field against famous coaches like Brian Billick, Bill Cowher, Jimmy Johnson, Tom Landry, or Dan Reeves—because they’re all retired (and Landry is deceased). But that’s exactly what players will be able to do … Continue reading “Quick Hit Will Let Players Pit Football Skills Against Legendary NFL Coaches”

Making Connections, Managing Risk in Startup Deals: A Visit to Boston Law Firm Mintz Levin

If you’ve seen from the inside how technology startups get created and funded, you know that law firms are involved at every step in the process. But to outside observers, it might be surprising just how central a role the attorneys can play—not just by helping entrepreneurs with incorporation papers and the other legal rigmarole … Continue reading “Making Connections, Managing Risk in Startup Deals: A Visit to Boston Law Firm Mintz Levin”

Massachusetts Battery Firms A123Systems and Boston-Power Taking Different Roads to Auto Market

The automotive segment of the battery market is expected to skyrocket in the coming years, as eco-friendly vehicles that rely heavily on battery power hit the road in greater numbers than ever before. And Massachusetts advanced battery developers A123Systems and Boston-Power are among many firms eying this lucrative market. But the two companies are at … Continue reading “Massachusetts Battery Firms A123Systems and Boston-Power Taking Different Roads to Auto Market”

Gloucester Nails Down $29M to Move Ahead with Late-Stage Cancer Drug

Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, the Cambridge, MA-based developer of cancer drugs, said today it has raised $29 million in a Series D venture round as it goes through the final dress rehearsals before making an argument for its lead drug in front of an expert review panel for the FDA. Gloucester raised the latest round from new … Continue reading “Gloucester Nails Down $29M to Move Ahead with Late-Stage Cancer Drug”

Venrock Adds Nordan as VP

Matthew Nordan, the co-founder and former president of technology consulting firm Lux Research, has joined the Cambridge, MA, office of venture firm Venrock as a vice president, the firm announced today. Nordan will focus on energy, environmental and materials technologies for Venrock, which originated as the venture investing arm of the Rockefeller family. (We profiled … Continue reading “Venrock Adds Nordan as VP”

Rothstein Joins Clean Energy Council

Peter Rothstein, a former entrepreneur in residence at Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, MA, has joined the New England Clean Energy Council as full-time senior vice president, the Cambridge-based organization announced today. At the council, Rothstein will focus on the Clean Energy Innovation Consortia, a project he launched to push for the creation of the “clean … Continue reading “Rothstein Joins Clean Energy Council”

Silverlink Raises $5M for Outreach to Healthcare Consumers

[Updated 11:00 a.m. August 24, 2009 with quotes from Silverlink CEO Stan Nowak] Silverlink Communications, the Burlington, MA-based startup whose healthcare communications services we profiled last month, has raised $5 million in series D venture funding, according to regulatory forms filed last week. Existing investors Sigma Partners, HLM Ventures, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures participated in … Continue reading “Silverlink Raises $5M for Outreach to Healthcare Consumers”

Resolvyx, Swinging for the Fence in First Human Study, Passes Test with Drug for Dry Eye

Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals, the company that develops derivatives from omega-3 fish oils into new drugs, is announcing today that the first therapy from this class passed its first clinical trial, helping alleviate symptoms for patients with chronic dry eye. This was a big hurdle for Bedford, MA-based Resolvyx to clear, partly because the company set the … Continue reading “Resolvyx, Swinging for the Fence in First Human Study, Passes Test with Drug for Dry Eye”

Venture Model Makeover & Diet Plan—Step One

A lot of people have been asking lately if the venture model is broken. But it seems to me that it’s just decrepit. Like an aging, rotund former football star, the venture industry is scratching its head and realizing that its glory days are long past. The industry collectively doesn’t really know how to handle … Continue reading “Venture Model Makeover & Diet Plan—Step One”

Extreme Reach Tries Video Ad Distribution Once More, With the Cloud

It’s not often in the startup world that you get to build the same company twice, with better technology the second time around. But that’s the basic story behind Extreme Reach, a Needham, MA, company that launched this January with a vision of helping video advertisers and their agencies distribute their ads to cable networks, … Continue reading “Extreme Reach Tries Video Ad Distribution Once More, With the Cloud”

Silverlink Communications Lands $5,000,000 Series D Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=4a203716-b6d2-4b06-925e-61f66dcfb4e8&Preview=1 Date 8/24/2009 Company Name Silverlink Communications Mailing Address 67 South Bedford Street Burlington, MA 01803 Company Description Silverlink Communications is revolutionizing outbound voice technology for the healthcare industry. Website http://www.silverlink.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $5,000,000 Transaction Round Series D Proceeds Purposes The funds will be used to build up … Continue reading “Silverlink Communications Lands $5,000,000 Series D Round”

MacLean Takes 38 Studios Helm

38 Studios, the Maynard, MA-based online gaming company founded by Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, said today that former CEO Brett Close has resigned, and that Jennifer MacLean, formerly the startup’s senior vice president of business development, has been appointed as his successor. Close has led development of 38 Studios’ massively multiplayer online fantasy game … Continue reading “MacLean Takes 38 Studios Helm”

Bezos Expeditions Contributes to $7 Million Round for Heartland Robotics

Regulatory documents filed today show that Heartland Robotics, the Cambridge, MA, industrial robotics startup founded by MIT computer science legend Rod Brooks, has raised just over $7 million in an equity offering. The documents don’t reveal the identities of the funders, and Heartland has not announced the names, but Xconomy has learned that one of … Continue reading “Bezos Expeditions Contributes to $7 Million Round for Heartland Robotics”

TipJoy Shuts Down

TipJoy, an Arlington, MA-based startup that created a micropayment system designed to allow Web users to reward content providers with small tips, announced on its blog yesterday that it is shutting down. Launched through the Y Combinator startup incubator program, TipJoy collected a Series A venture investment of nearly $1 million less than a year … Continue reading “TipJoy Shuts Down”

Why It’s Crazy for Authors to Keep Their Books Off the Kindle

In June, I wrote a column about the problem of “On Demand Disorder“—my name for the narrowing of vision that can occur when people get addicted to the instant experiences available over the Internet and other digital media. If you only listen to the music you can find on iTunes or Pandora or Last.fm, if … Continue reading “Why It’s Crazy for Authors to Keep Their Books Off the Kindle”

$14M for Novomer, $7.3M for Innocentive, $6M for Zendesk, & More Boston-Area Deals News

In what I think is a first for the deals roundup, it was all venture all the time for New England’s tech and life sciences companies this past week. —Greentech Media, the Cambridge, MA-based media, market research, and events company, collected $825,000 of a planned $1.25 extension of its Series B round, which previously totaled … Continue reading “$14M for Novomer, $7.3M for Innocentive, $6M for Zendesk, & More Boston-Area Deals News”

NanoSteel Company Garners $8,000,000 New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=595f31ad-fa99-49b4-ae05-fe781fc65f93&Preview=1 Date 8/21/2009 Company Name NanoSteel Company Mailing Address 67 Cedar Street Providence, RI 02903 Company Description The NanoSteel Company is an advanced materials company which has created a unique and proprietary portfolio of nanotechnology based and environmentally friendly steel alloys that greatly increase the value of steel in most of today’s … Continue reading “NanoSteel Company Garners $8,000,000 New Financing Round”

North Bridge Adds General Partner

Technology veteran Jim Moran has joined North Bridge Venture Partners, of Waltham, MA, as a general partner, the venture firm announced today. Moran was previously CEO of Covergence, a Maynard, MA, provider of telecommunications software, which was acquired by Burlington, MA-based software firm Acme Packet (NASDAQ:[[ticker:APKT]]) in May for a reported $22.8 million. North Bridge, … Continue reading “North Bridge Adds General Partner”

Acquia on Why Web Publishers Love Drupal—And How the Startup Balances Business With Belonging to an Open-Source Community

So you want to be a Web publisher? First you’ll need the modern equivalent of a printing press: a content management system (CMS). There are many to choose from, each with its own committed proponents. If you’re a big company, you might spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an enterprise-class system like EMC’s Documentum. … Continue reading “Acquia on Why Web Publishers Love Drupal—And How the Startup Balances Business With Belonging to an Open-Source Community”

MyWebGrocer, A Survivor of the Online Grocery World, Plots Growth Strategy with iPhone Apps

The online grocery business famously flamed out earlier this decade, after hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped into companies like HomeGrocer.com and Webvan. But online grocery sales and advertising have been making a comeback in recent years, and one of the industry survivors, MyWebGrocer, based in Colchester, VT, has raised a healthy $13 million … Continue reading “MyWebGrocer, A Survivor of the Online Grocery World, Plots Growth Strategy with iPhone Apps”

EnerNOC Lands $5,500,000 Series B Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=2992cc67-5647-4cb0-a0e0-0ff7b869a000&Preview=1 Date 8/20/2009 Company Name EnerNOC Mailing Address 75 Federal Street Boston, MA 02110 Company Description EnerNOC (Nasdaq: ENOC) is the leading provider of full-service demand response and energy management solutions in the United States. We enable energy users, energy suppliers, system operators, and utilities to reduce demand for electricity during periods … Continue reading “EnerNOC Lands $5,500,000 Series B Financing Round”

State of Venture Quiz 2: Answers and Commentary

Do you get the feeling deal flow is picking up a bit? Well, you might be right. But does that make things better for entrepreneurs? Not necessarily. As Boston lawyer John Hession sums up: “The market is improving. That doesn’t necessarily mean that deal terms are improving or valuations are improving. It means the number … Continue reading “State of Venture Quiz 2: Answers and Commentary”

With Funding from OVP, Novomer Works to Make Diapers and Other Plastic Goodies from Carbon Gases

Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide get a bad rap. Sure, the first is a silent killer that binds to hemoglobin and suffocates people in burning buildings, and the second is poisoning our atmosphere and driving global temperatures out of control. But did you know that they can also be used to make plastic? Back in … Continue reading “With Funding from OVP, Novomer Works to Make Diapers and Other Plastic Goodies from Carbon Gases”

Why Big Pharma Wants To Be Like Big Biotech

Why would a Big Pharma company want to remake itself as a biotech? In a recent Xconomy piece, I discussed the changes in Roche’s corporate culture brought on by their recent acquisition of Genentech, along with recommendations for creating an innovative biotech research culture. What I didn’t have the space to dive into was a … Continue reading “Why Big Pharma Wants To Be Like Big Biotech”

Navinet and Vitality use Internet for Health, Constellation Gets to Series A, and Other Boston-Area Life Sciences News

It was a mixed week of business and science, with a couple of stories on health IT companies to round things out. —Luke reported on Thursday that Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]) is pushing forward with its Vancouver, BC-based partner Tekmira to create RNA interference drugs to treat cancer. The partnership is focusing on ways … Continue reading “Navinet and Vitality use Internet for Health, Constellation Gets to Series A, and Other Boston-Area Life Sciences News”

Jake Shapiro on PRX and the iPhone App That Could Change Public Radio’s Future

At first, the mission of the Public Radio Exchange was simple enough: Create an online clearinghouse for news-and-culture radio programming where public radio stations would have an easier time shopping for shows and independent producers would have a better shot at getting their stuff on the air. PRX launched that system in 2003, and it’s … Continue reading “Jake Shapiro on PRX and the iPhone App That Could Change Public Radio’s Future”