Category: Boston

ConforMIS Receives $35,083,800 New Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=e3427474-699b-45ed-a05a-de41245ab545&Preview=1 Date 6/30/2009 Company Name ConforMIS Mailing Address 2 Fourth Ave. Burlington, MA 01803 Company Description Our mission is to provide best-in-class, patient-specific, minimally invasive medical implants for orthopedics and sports medicine. This is achieved through use of our unique and highly differentiating imaging analysis tools that render precision 3-D implant sizing … Continue reading “ConforMIS Receives $35,083,800 New Financing Round”

OnePIN Obtains $850,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=1e19e5a3-bd51-4202-a938-ebe5102b6119&Preview=1 Date 6/30/2009 Company Name OnePIN Mailing Address 2200 West Park Drive Westborough, MA 01581 Company Description OnePIN delivers innovative communication and collaboration applications via web and wireless services. OnePIN’s permission-based contact management system enables individuals and organizations to keep their personal contact information current. Website http://www.onepin.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction … Continue reading “OnePIN Obtains $850,000 New Financing”

Plectix BioSystems Lands $6,917,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=8cd2302f-fad9-48a9-9ee3-6cad9345f4c2&Preview=1 Date 6/30/2009 Company Name Plectix BioSystems Mailing Address 20 Holland Street Somerville, MA 02144 Company Description The company is developing computer modeling of complex biological and chemical systems. Website http://www.plectix.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $6,917,000 Transaction Round Undisclosed Proceeds Purposes Proceeds purposes were not disclosed. M&A Terms Venture Investor … Continue reading “Plectix BioSystems Lands $6,917,000 New Financing”

Amazon Pulls the Plug on Rhode Island Affiliates

Seattle’s mighty Amazon isn’t feeling too friendly toward the Ocean State. This morning, the online retail giant sent out a terse notice to its Rhode Island affiliates, informing them that their accounts were closed effective June 29th, due to impending changes to the state’s tax laws that apply to certain online purchases. This echoes a … Continue reading “Amazon Pulls the Plug on Rhode Island Affiliates”

Yahoo to Wind Down Maven Video Publishing Service

[Update 12:30 a.m. 6/30/09: We’ve revised this story after speaking with a Yahoo official.] A report Monday in TechCrunch asserting that Yahoo is killing off its Cambridge, MA-based video hosting company Maven Networks just 16 months after acquiring it for $160 million is inaccurate in some respects, but accurate in others, according to the company. … Continue reading “Yahoo to Wind Down Maven Video Publishing Service”

$3M for IntelligentMDx

IntelligentMDx, a Cambridge, MA, startup developing DNA- and RNA-based tests for a range of human diseases, announced last week that it has raised an additional $3 million from a group of unnamed, non-venture investors. The new funding brings the startup’s total capital pot to $26.5 million.

Biogen Reports 10th PML Case in Tysabri Patient

Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:[[ticker:BIIB]]) reported a tenth case of a serious brain infection in a patient taking Tysabri, the Cambridge, MA-based company’s drug for multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease. The news was disclosed late last Friday on the company’s website (pdf here). Luke wrote back in December about the history of Tysabri, which was pulled from … Continue reading “Biogen Reports 10th PML Case in Tysabri Patient”

Oneforty Gets Funded

Oneforty, a company creating an online clearinghouse of applications related to Twitter, is the first participant in the TechStars Boston summer startup incubator program to receive funding, according to a report last Friday from Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner. The San Francisco company, led by CEO Laura Fitton, has reportedly raised under $250,000 in funding … Continue reading “Oneforty Gets Funded”

Aveo Pieces Together a Plan to Rival Big Boys of Cancer Drug World

Great biotechnology stories have three essential ingredients—science, medicine, and business. Aveo Pharmaceuticals CEO Tuan Ha-Ngoc told me last week that he thinks about these same elements in his quest to build a sustainable company. Few companies ever put together all the pieces, though, and it’s too early to say if Cambridge, MA-based Aveo is one … Continue reading “Aveo Pieces Together a Plan to Rival Big Boys of Cancer Drug World”

ZDNet Founder Starts Video Marketing Firm

Michael Kolowich—the founder of ZDNet, former president of AT&T New Media, and former chief marketing officer at Lotus—is among the founders of Channel One Marketing, a social media marketing firm that launched today in Concord, MA. Channel One, which is allied with video production studio DigiNovations, also based in Concord, says it specializes in promoting … Continue reading “ZDNet Founder Starts Video Marketing Firm”

Balancing Computer Security and Innovation—A Talk with RSA’s Art Coviello

It’s no surprise that the president of RSA, the security division of Hopkinton, MA-based information management giant EMC (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]), has strong views about the need for better security practices within corporations and government agencies. But Art Coviello, who joined RSA in 1995 and helped engineer its 2006 acquisition by EMC, says the problem isn’t … Continue reading “Balancing Computer Security and Innovation—A Talk with RSA’s Art Coviello”

EMC Extends Data Domain Offer, ClickFuel Tanks Up with $2.5M, Auriga Measures $2.75M, & (a Little) More Boston-Area Deals News

Just a few deals to report from last week—perhaps New England’s tech and life sciences firms were all too busy attending XSITE? —Auriga Measurement Systems, a wireless instrumentation and design company in Lowell, MA, raised $2.75 million in additional seed funding from undisclosed investors. Ohio-based White Oak Partners put $1.5 million into Auriga in 2007. … Continue reading “EMC Extends Data Domain Offer, ClickFuel Tanks Up with $2.5M, Auriga Measures $2.75M, & (a Little) More Boston-Area Deals News”

Academia Beckons: Launching the BU Kindle Mentoring Program

I joined Boston University (BU) as a Lecturer and Executive-in-Residence in January 2008 and have been teaching courses on entrepreneurship to MBA students. My academic career has expanded recently with two projects. First, I am collaborating with a friend and colleague Vivek Wadhwa at Duke University (I’m now an Adjunct Research Scientist at Duke’s Pratt … Continue reading “Academia Beckons: Launching the BU Kindle Mentoring Program”

IntelligentMDx Obtains $3,000,000 New Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=a0f0f79e-93ab-48d8-84c7-66aa7994c283&Preview=1 Date 6/29/2009 Company Name IntelligentMDx Mailing Address 19 Blackstone Street Cambridge, MA 02139 Company Description IntelligentMDx’s competitive advantage is in the production of superior performing tests with significantly faster time to market. Embedded in our approach is a bioinformatics process that uses mathematical algorithms to predict test failure and simulate real … Continue reading “IntelligentMDx Obtains $3,000,000 New Round”

CloudSwitch, Inc. Receives $8,000,000 Series B Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=3e0d658b-a1af-4a06-bd5e-9b037ba02258&Preview=1 Date 6/29/2009 Company Name CloudSwitch, Inc. Mailing Address 200 Wheeler Road Burlington, MA 01803 Company Description We’re a fast-growing venture backed by Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture and Commonwealth Capital Ventures, currently in stealth-mode. We’re building an innovative software appliance that delivers the power of cloud computing seamlessly and securely so enterprises … Continue reading “CloudSwitch, Inc. Receives $8,000,000 Series B Financing Round”

Raindance Technologies Inc. Lands $6,000,000 Series B Financing Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=fee480ee-5f34-4cc4-81f2-e3cdcc1f0f18&Preview=1 Date 6/29/2009 Company Name Raindance Technologies Inc. Mailing Address 44 Hartwell Avenue Lexington, MA 02421 Company Description RainDance Technologies, Inc. (RDT) is a nanotechnology company devoted to developing, and commercializing the Personal Laboratory System™, a platform for droplet-based (“digital”) microfluidics. Website http://www.raindancetechnologies.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $6,000,000 Transaction Round … Continue reading “Raindance Technologies Inc. Lands $6,000,000 Series B Financing Round”

Xconomy Marks Two Years as The Source for Innovation News

For the last few months, we here at Xconomy have been extremely busy planning XSITE, the Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, which packed the auditorium at the Boston University School of Management on Wednesday. At some point in the hullabaloo, we remembered we had another important event fast approaching—tomorrow, in fact—the second anniversary … Continue reading “Xconomy Marks Two Years as The Source for Innovation News”

A Huge Thank You to XSITE 2009 Sponsors, Speakers, Partners, and Attendees–and a Special Shout-Out to One Particular Friend of Xconomy

We are taking a deep breath here at Xconomy. On Wednesday we held our biggest, most ambitious event ever: the Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, aka XSITE 2009, at Boston University. All told, some 400 people attended the all-day event at BU’s School of Management, which featured what we think is the year’s … Continue reading “A Huge Thank You to XSITE 2009 Sponsors, Speakers, Partners, and Attendees–and a Special Shout-Out to One Particular Friend of Xconomy”

Hang Out with Xconomy at DEMO’s Boston Scouting Party

The organizers of DEMO, the semiannual conference where tech startups do six-minute onstage demonstrations of their newest products, are coming to Boston next week to scout for stealth-mode innovators interested in launching their companies at DEMOfall 09, planned for September 21-23 in San Diego. This Monday, come help Xconomy’s Bob Buderi and me welcome DEMO … Continue reading “Hang Out with Xconomy at DEMO’s Boston Scouting Party”

Xconomy HQ is Bursting at the Seams; Xconomy’s Pages Won’t Be Quite as Full as Usual

I’m extremely pleased to report that Xconomy’s headquarters in Cambridge are jam packed this week, since everybody flew in from our Seattle and San Diego offices for the inaugural XSITE—Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship—yesterday at Boston University. It’s a rare treat to have everybody together and, fortuitously, we’re also coming up on the … Continue reading “Xconomy HQ is Bursting at the Seams; Xconomy’s Pages Won’t Be Quite as Full as Usual”

Xconomy Summit Hits Boston: Lessons on Innovation, Plans for Recovery from Dean Kamen, Juan Enriquez, and a Host of Other Leaders

Boston-area entrepreneurs unveiled their inventions for optimizing decision-making, delivering drugs to the bladder, and providing a “check-engine light” for the human body. Investors shrugged off the bitter economy and talked about their future plans to create new tech companies. Inventor and educator Dean Kamen delivered an inspirational speech on ways to train the coming generation … Continue reading “Xconomy Summit Hits Boston: Lessons on Innovation, Plans for Recovery from Dean Kamen, Juan Enriquez, and a Host of Other Leaders”

ClickFuel Raises $2.5M

Boston-based ClickFuel, which offers Web-based services that help small and medium-sized businesses manage Internet marketing campaigns, said today that it has raised $2.5 million in a Series A round led by Chicago-based Baird Venture Partners. Launched last month, ClickFuel is led by Steve Pogorzelski, a former senior executive at career site Monster Worldwide.

Boston Scientific CEO Retires, Replaced by Former Zimmer Boss

[Updated with CEO pay packages, 9:52 am Eastern] Boston Scientific president and CEO Jim Tobin is retiring, and will be replaced by Ray Elliott, the Natick, MA-based medical device maker said today in a statement. Tobin, who has led the company (NYSE: [[ticker:BSX]]) for a decade, will turn 65 in another two months. The change … Continue reading “Boston Scientific CEO Retires, Replaced by Former Zimmer Boss”

ClickFuel Inc Receives $2,500,000 Series A Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=9cc94120-3d4c-4771-a5b1-3e574a815823&Preview=1 Date 6/25/2009 Company Name ClickFuel Inc Mailing Address 580 Harrison Avenue Boston, MA 02118 Company Description At ClickFuel our business is helping companies generate more business at an affordable cost by leveraging the power of the Internet. We do this by giving local businesses the ability to reach the right people … Continue reading “ClickFuel Inc Receives $2,500,000 Series A Funding Round”

EMC Opens Research Arm in Cambridge, Joins MIT Media Lab as Sponsor

EMC has joined the growing ranks of major information technology companies boosting their R&D presence in Kendall Square, creating EMC Research Cambridge, a small research arm near MIT. It has already moved the headquarters of RSA Laboratories to the new outpost, and has signed on as a corporate sponsor of the MIT Media Lab. The … Continue reading “EMC Opens Research Arm in Cambridge, Joins MIT Media Lab as Sponsor”

SugarLabs Releases Sugar on Stick

SugarLabs, the Boston-based organization leading the development of Sugar, the open-source operating environment originally developed for the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s XO Laptop, said today that it is now distributing a self-contained version of Sugar that boots from a thumb drive. Called “Sugar on a Stick,” the product was described in detail by SugarLabs … Continue reading “SugarLabs Releases Sugar on Stick”

Biogen and Fellow Boston-Area Biotechs Ready for Biogenerics

Boston-area biotech companies have kept a close eye on how U.S. regulators decide to govern the approval of copycat versions of biotech drugs. Now I’m seeing more signs that some of these companies could actually become major players in the business of making biogenerics (which are also called biosimilars, follow-on biologics, and other names, depending … Continue reading “Biogen and Fellow Boston-Area Biotechs Ready for Biogenerics”

Life Science Leaders Converge in Newport, PubGet Gets Your Paper Faster, I-Therapeutix Eyes $15M Prize & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News

Our Seattle compatriots have all arrived in Boston for XSITE. We wish we could say they brought the rain with them, but in fact, Boston has been far wetter than Seattle all month. The week’s life sciences news, however, isn’t quite the downpour you’ve all been dealing with outside. —Wide-roaming correspondent Ryan McBride took in … Continue reading “Life Science Leaders Converge in Newport, PubGet Gets Your Paper Faster, I-Therapeutix Eyes $15M Prize & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”

TARIS Biomedical Obtains $15,000,000 Series A Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=4bd9322e-60fb-4710-aecd-98dd20e516ba&Preview=1 Date 6/24/2009 Company Name TARIS Biomedical Mailing Address 99 Hayden Avenue Lexington, MA 02421 Company Description TARIS Biomedical Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company with deep domain expertise in therapeutics and drug-delivery, is focused on local minimally-invasive drug-device convergence products. The TARIS core technology and development efforts are being applied to disease … Continue reading “TARIS Biomedical Obtains $15,000,000 Series A Funding”

One Day Til XSITE: Just A Few Seats Left, but Plenty of Innovation to Go Around

This is it. After two months of all-out effort here at Xconomy, we are just about ready to rock and roll with XSITE 2009 at Boston University. The event starts first thing tomorrow morning, so we are down to the wire. We have over 350 people registered and fewer than 20 tickets left (get yours … Continue reading “One Day Til XSITE: Just A Few Seats Left, but Plenty of Innovation to Go Around”

TruFan Swings For the Fences

Rafe Anderson is moving up into the big leagues. His sports social media network, TruFan, officially goes national today. TruFan grew out of a collection of websites—Sawxheads, Celtsheads, and Blackandgoldheads—which focused solely on Boston teams. Now the national network will include 122 communities for clubs across the country, spanning Major League Baseball, the National Football … Continue reading “TruFan Swings For the Fences”

Spark-funded Clear Shuts Down

Clear, a five-year-old biometric passenger identification service intended to speed air travelers’ passage through security checkpoints, shut down last night. According to the service’s website, parent company Verified Identity Pass of New York, NY, was unable to obtain credit to continue operations. Boston’s Spark Capital led a $44.4 million Series C venture funding round for … Continue reading “Spark-funded Clear Shuts Down”

CRV Taps F—edCompany.com Creator

Charles River Ventures, a venture firm with offices in Waltham, MA, and Menlo Park, CA, has recruited F—edCompany.com creator Philip Kaplan to be an entrepreneur-in-residence at the firm, VentureWire reports. Kaplan, aka “Pud,” tells the VC news service that he plans to evaluate tech companies in the context of venture investing rather than slamming them … Continue reading “CRV Taps F—edCompany.com Creator”

Why EMC Wants to Build a High Performance Data Center in Holyoke

Scene: An abandoned brick building along the Connecticut River. The image dissolves, then reforms to show a new, ultra-modern factory in its place. Move to interior shot of computers and server banks. Brilliant academics ponder the future. Highly trained young professionals walk purposefully, the future alive in their eyes. I have no idea whether the … Continue reading “Why EMC Wants to Build a High Performance Data Center in Holyoke”

PodCamp Boston 4

PodCamp Boston is a new media bootcamp that promises to benefit experienced twitterer and social media neophyte alike.  They write: “PodCamp is driven by what YOU want to learn and share. Twitter? Sure. Blogging? Definitely. Podcasting? By the bucket. More important, we want you, as you register, to consider leading a session in which you … Continue reading “PodCamp Boston 4”

Pubget Speeds Up Science Journal Searches, Provides Marketing Tools

Ramy Arnaout, a clinical pathologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, believed he and his colleagues were wasting precious time performing Web searches for scientific journal articles. Time would be better spent curing diseases and treating patients. So he developed an application at first to use on his own computer to speed up … Continue reading “Pubget Speeds Up Science Journal Searches, Provides Marketing Tools”

Auriga Lands $2.75 Million

Lowell, MA-based Auriga Measurement Systems says it has raised $2.75 million in additional seed funding. The wireless instrumentation and design company delivers test equipment for high-frequency, high-powered RF microwave front-ends. The company did not disclose the names of the participants in the seed round. In 2007 Ohio-based White Oak Partners put $1.5 million into Auriga, … Continue reading “Auriga Lands $2.75 Million”

Successful Startups Put Some Distance Between Their HQ and Their VCs

The conventional wisdom used to be that technology startups should be located as close to their venture investors’ main offices as possible. That way, it’s easier to call on your venture partners’ experience and networks, get them to attend your board meetings, and so forth. But the conventional wisdom may be dead wrong. Private equity … Continue reading “Successful Startups Put Some Distance Between Their HQ and Their VCs”

Fidelity to Shutter $500M PE Unit

Boston-based financial giant Fidelity Investments plans to close its private equity unit next month due the unit’s inability to raise funds through debt financings, Reuters reported this morning. The closure of the two-year-old private equity unit, which is called Fidelity Equity Partners and manages $500 million in assets, will have no impact on Fidelity Ventures, … Continue reading “Fidelity to Shutter $500M PE Unit”

Should You Sign Up for Google Voice? Xconomy Readers Share Their Beta Experiences

Back in March, I wrote a column about Google Voice, the reincarnated version of a voicemail unification service that Google acquired from Grand Central back in 2007. The free service gives you a single phone number for life that isn’t tied to any particular land line or cellular device—instead, calls ring through to whichever phones … Continue reading “Should You Sign Up for Google Voice? Xconomy Readers Share Their Beta Experiences”

Data Domain Fight Continues, Adimab Adds Merck and Roche as Partners, BigBelly Solar Gets Dirty With Waste Management, & More Boston-Area Deals News

[Corrected 4:40pm ET, June 22; see first item] Deals last week involved everything from cancer screening to trash compacting, but the analysts were kept on their toes by the dramatic events unfolding between EMC and Data Domain. —Reuters reported that data storage giant EMC (NYSE [[ticker:EMC]]), of Hopkinton, MA, was prepared to raise its bid—from … Continue reading “Data Domain Fight Continues, Adimab Adds Merck and Roche as Partners, BigBelly Solar Gets Dirty With Waste Management, & More Boston-Area Deals News”

Are Government and Utilities the New Sexy Destinations for MBAs?

I’m sure some of you have heard a version of this quote before: “In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, large families in the U.S. sent their fifth or sixth child to work for the government or a utility company under the assumption that the later the child was born the less intelligent he/she was.” Even … Continue reading “Are Government and Utilities the New Sexy Destinations for MBAs?”

Auriga Measurement Systems Obtains $2,750,000 New Financing

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=70af12fa-6b2e-44d9-99a2-7f023bb7aa13&Preview=1 Date 6/22/2009 Company Name Auriga Measurement Systems Mailing Address 650 Suffolk Street Lowell, MA 01854 Company Description Auriga is a company built around engineers with more than 150-years combined experience in providing cutting-edge solutions for the high-frequency, high-powered RF microwave market. The Auriga team of engineers continually “push the envelope” to … Continue reading “Auriga Measurement Systems Obtains $2,750,000 New Financing”

I-Therapeutix Raises $15M in Round Led by Polaris

I-Therapeutix is reaping the rewards of its swift development of a hydrogel bandage to seal surgical wounds on the eye. Hatched in 2006, the Waltham, MA-based startup has already garnered European market clearance for the product and plans to reveal today it has landed $15 million in a Series C round of venture capital. Polaris … Continue reading “I-Therapeutix Raises $15M in Round Led by Polaris”

Living Proof Lathers $9M in Fresh Capital into Beauty Products Operation

[Updated at 11:15 am] Living Proof, a Cambridge, MA-based startup applying advances in material science from institutions such as MIT to the beauty industry, has raised $9 million in a new round of equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. Polaris Venture Partners, which founded Living Proof with MIT inventor Bob Langer and others, provided … Continue reading “Living Proof Lathers $9M in Fresh Capital into Beauty Products Operation”

The Transformative Twelve: Presenting the XSITE Xpo Showcase

June 2009 is a month of firsts for Xconomy. It’s the first anniversary of our Seattle site. It’s the first time we’ve organized a full-day innovation conference, the Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, coming up on June 24. And, as part of XSITE, it’s the first time we’ve assembled local startups for a … Continue reading “The Transformative Twelve: Presenting the XSITE Xpo Showcase”

Boston’s Digital Entertainment Economy Begins to Sense Its Own Strength

Let’s say you live in Boston and you’ve just hit on a great concept for a cross-media property, with all the attendant merchandising tie-ins: a special-effects-laden movie, a console video game, a comic, a kids’ cartoon, action figures, a novelization, a persistent online world—in other words, the next Matrix or Transformers or Harry Potter. To … Continue reading “Boston’s Digital Entertainment Economy Begins to Sense Its Own Strength”