Fresh off the launch of its smart device hub earlier this month, Revolv announced today it has closed a $4 million Series A round. Revolv is developing a hub that will control smart devices like locks, lights, or thermostats made by different manufacturers, including Sonos, Phillips, Belkin, and Yale. Users can control the devices using … Continue reading “Investors Consider Smart Hub Maker Revolv a Smart Bet, Invest $4M”
Category: National
Cleantech Startup Optimitive, a Surge alum, Lands Series A Round
Optimitive, a Spanish startup and alum of Houston’s Surge Accelerator, announced Tuesday it has raised €1.4 million, or about $1.9 million, from a Luxembourg venture capital fund. GGM Venture Capital, which invests in early-stage European tech startups, led the Series A investment into Optimitive. Cleantech accelerator Surge co-invested $50,000, which is the typical amount it … Continue reading “Cleantech Startup Optimitive, a Surge alum, Lands Series A Round”
Roundup: Rapt.fm’s Rapping Royals, LevelEleven’s New Partnership
Here’s a look at news you may have missed from the Southeast Michigan innovation community: —Hallelujah, it’s finally happened: There will soon be an affordable way to get from Detroit to Metro Airport in Romulus! For those of you in other cities wondering what the big deal is, there is currently no convenient way to … Continue reading “Roundup: Rapt.fm’s Rapping Royals, LevelEleven’s New Partnership”
Storytelling Gets Social, in Tweet-Driven Doses, with AuthorBee
Plenty of ways exist to collaborate on stories but AuthorBee has taken the task to tweets. The platform from the New York-based startup lets individuals and businesses interact with and crowdsource ideas from the public. Last week, AuthorBee introduced its @AuthorBee product, which brings the action to the Twitter audience. The basic idea is to … Continue reading “Storytelling Gets Social, in Tweet-Driven Doses, with AuthorBee”
San Antonio MedTech Startup’s “Clamp” Aims to Stop Bleeding Faster
For Dennis Filips, entrepreneurial inspiration came from the grim battlefields of Serbia, the Golan Heights, and Afghanistan. A trauma surgeon with the Canadian Forces until 2008, Filips experienced firsthand the difficulty in stemming blood loss of injured soldiers as he attempted to stabilize them for hospital care. Those insights led him and his co-founder Ian … Continue reading “San Antonio MedTech Startup’s “Clamp” Aims to Stop Bleeding Faster”
Thiel’s Breakout Labs Backs Cell-Based Platforms As It Turns Two
[Corrected 11/27/13, see below] Scientists have noticed for years that when they poke cells under a microscope, cancer cells are more easily deformed than healthy cells. But those odd observations have had little use so far as an aid to cancer diagnosis, because poking individual cells would be a hopelessly time-consuming and inaccurate test. Enter the South … Continue reading “Thiel’s Breakout Labs Backs Cell-Based Platforms As It Turns Two”
Gates Foundation Health Chief on Coaxing Pharma to Do Good (Part 2)
Yesterday, I ran the first installment of an interview with Trevor Mundel, the president of global health at the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He talked about his personal reasons for leaving the pharmaceutical industry to work on global health problems, and how the foundation makes decisions on how to spend its money. Today, … Continue reading “Gates Foundation Health Chief on Coaxing Pharma to Do Good (Part 2)”
Seamless Toy Introduces Atoms, the Latest Robotic Toy from Colorado
A lot of people will tell you simplicity is a virtue. Like kids who play with dolls or building blocks for hours. Or the engineers who helped design Apple’s hardware and OS X software. Or, apparently, U2 lead singer Bono. That’s the philosophy behind Seamless Toy, a one-year-old Boulder, CO-based startup. Seamless Toy was founded … Continue reading “Seamless Toy Introduces Atoms, the Latest Robotic Toy from Colorado”
Cubist’s Calixa Buyout Bears Fruit as Antibiotic Hits First Phase 3 Mark
When Cubist Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CBST]]) agreed to shell out as much as $402.5 million for Calixa Therapeutics a few years ago, this was the type of day it had in mind. Lexington, MA-based Cubist said today that the antibiotic it acquired in the Calixa buyout, CXA-201, hit its mark in the first of two Phase … Continue reading “Cubist’s Calixa Buyout Bears Fruit as Antibiotic Hits First Phase 3 Mark”
Franco-Texas MedTech Firm Looks to Innovate in Spinal Therapies
As Christophe Lavigne puts it, back in 2000, he and his co-founders were “three guys out in the middle of nowhere trying to create the gold standard of spine surgery.” The three entrepreneurs were in Troyes, France, a town in the Champagne region known more for its half-timbered homes than its medical innovation. But that’s … Continue reading “Franco-Texas MedTech Firm Looks to Innovate in Spinal Therapies”
TapCommerce Raises $10.5 M in Series A Round Led by Bain and RRE
Sometimes a second impression can win over fickle buyers online. At least that’s what developers of ad retargeting technology believe—and investors seem to agree. One startup in this space, TapCommerce in New York, now has more money show what its platform can do. On Friday, the company said it raised $10.5 million in a Series … Continue reading “TapCommerce Raises $10.5 M in Series A Round Led by Bain and RRE”
Glaxo Setting Up San Diego Outpost to Oversee its Westward Expansion
The British multinational pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: [[ticker:GSK]]) is establishing an R&D outpost in San Diego to help manage its relationships with venture capital firms, and to prospect along the West Coast for new opportunities in drugs, biologics, vaccines, and other products. It will be GSK’s first office in San Diego, according to Damien McDevitt, … Continue reading “Glaxo Setting Up San Diego Outpost to Oversee its Westward Expansion”
The Future of Data and Devices: The Photos
D2 is in the books. Our “Future of Data and Devices” tech conference on Thursday delivered on its promise to stir up discussion of where big data, the cloud, and connected devices are converging—and how entrepreneurs and innovators can stay ahead of the curve. What did we learn? Here are four of my broad takeaways: … Continue reading “The Future of Data and Devices: The Photos”
Armo BioSciences Joins the Cancer Immunotherapy Party With $20M
Merck threw out some assets a few years ago when it did its mega-merger with Schering-Plough. Now we can see that some savvy investors think it might have tossed aside a valuable cancer immunotherapy. Armo BioSciences is the name of the startup in Redwood City, CA that is emerging from stealth mode today to say … Continue reading “Armo BioSciences Joins the Cancer Immunotherapy Party With $20M”
What Entrepreneurs Should Learn from John Lackey
Success in business is out of reach to those who aren’t already blessed with plentiful advantage, so goes the conventional wisdom. A similar stereotype in sports is that you either have talent or you don’t. But the story of a once-maligned pitcher’s World Series victory upends both of these stereotypes, and has great lessons for … Continue reading “What Entrepreneurs Should Learn from John Lackey”
Gates Foundation Health Chief on Coaxing Pharma to Do Good
Bill Gates can summon the CEOs of every major global pharmaceutical company, and get them thinking and talking about things that won’t help them make more money. Pharma and biotech companies, cast as the villain pretty much everywhere, certainly like the PR boost they get from working with Gates and putting their immense resources to … Continue reading “Gates Foundation Health Chief on Coaxing Pharma to Do Good”
Three VCs Pour $43M Into Editas to “Edit” Out Genetic Disorders
Gene therapy, make way for gene “editing.” Today, three of Boston’s biotech startup creators—Polaris Partners, Third Rock Ventures, and Flagship Ventures, have banded together to create a new, Cambridge, MA-based startup called Editas Medicine. It’s a sizable bet. The three, with the help of Partners Innovation Fund, have plunked down a $43 million Series A … Continue reading “Three VCs Pour $43M Into Editas to “Edit” Out Genetic Disorders”
Buildings and Batteries Yield New Investment for Colorado Startups
Three Colorado startups that build better buildings, batteries, and businesses announced this week they received money from investors. Prescient, a Denver-based startup founded in September 2012, Prescient announced it raised $3 million in private equity investment this week. Prescient makes software that designs 3D models of buildings and then uses that software to manufacture precision-cut … Continue reading “Buildings and Batteries Yield New Investment for Colorado Startups”
San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: IPOs, CareFusion, and More
The IPO market continued to chill for life sciences companies, as generalist investors apparently lost their enthusiasm for the sector. Here are the details, along with the rest of San Diego’s life sciences news. —San Diego-based Vital Therapies postponed its IPO, as investor demand for biotech stocks cooled, especially among the institutional investors who don’t … Continue reading “San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: IPOs, CareFusion, and More”
Play-i’s Robots Make Programming Come Alive for Kids
For Play-i co-founder and CEO Vikas Gupta, coming up with the mission for his company—to make programming fun and accessible for every child—wasn’t the hard part of building the business. The computer scientist and veteran of Amazon and Google could see the need for better programming education, particularly as other countries started to outpace the … Continue reading “Play-i’s Robots Make Programming Come Alive for Kids”
East Coast Biotech Roundup: Moderna, Aileron, Seres, & More
[Updated, 9:08 am ET] The hours are quickly ticking down towards Turkey Day, so no surprise that many East Coast biotechs wanted to wrap up their big news announcements first. We’ve got all of those headlines below: —Cambridge, MA-based Moderna Therapeutics turned heads in the biotech world when it got a $240 million check from … Continue reading “East Coast Biotech Roundup: Moderna, Aileron, Seres, & More”
David Botstein, 71, on Joining Google’s Anti-Aging Play, Calico
David Botstein, one of the more prominent geneticists of his generation, was winding down his academic lab earlier this year. His term as director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University expired in July. He’s 71. He had recently won a “Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences” worth $3 million. He was planning … Continue reading “David Botstein, 71, on Joining Google’s Anti-Aging Play, Calico”
Vital Therapies Postpones IPO as Biotech Sector Chills
Life sciences IPOs ran into market resistance for the second consecutive week. San Diego-based Vital Therapies and Malvern, PA’s TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals both postponed their IPOs yesterday, according to the IPO research firm Renaissance Capital. Travena, another Pennsylvania biotech, scrapped its IPO earlier in the week, and two other life science companies, Oxford Immunotec and Evogene, … Continue reading “Vital Therapies Postpones IPO as Biotech Sector Chills”
First Startup from Avalon-GSK Deal Raises $10M for Celiac Disease
A collaboration formed earlier this year between San Diego’s Avalon Ventures and GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: [[ticker:GSK]]) has hatched its first startup. Avalon partner Jay Lichter says the company, Sitari Pharmaceuticals, was recently established with $10 million in Series A financing, provided under the Avalon-GSK partnership, to develop new treatments for celiac disease. Under their innovative collaboration, … Continue reading “First Startup from Avalon-GSK Deal Raises $10M for Celiac Disease”
Roundup: News from Everpath, Haiku Deck, Planetary Resources & More
No IPOs or blockbuster funding rounds so far this week, but check out some interesting tidbits from Techstars grads Everpath and Haiku Deck; Planetary Resources; Portland-based startup Househappy; and more. —Everpath, a 2013 Techstars Seattle company making an online education platform, raised $950,000 from angel investors in Seattle and the Bay Area. The startup is … Continue reading “Roundup: News from Everpath, Haiku Deck, Planetary Resources & More”
Northern Colorado Incubator at Work Setting Up New $20M Seed Fund
More money for early stage startups could be coming to Colorado, thanks to ongoing efforts by an incubator based in Fort Collins and a nonprofit lender to small businesses to bring more capital into the northern Colorado region. The Rocky Mountain Innosphere and Colorado Enterprise Fund announced this week they are in the process of … Continue reading “Northern Colorado Incubator at Work Setting Up New $20M Seed Fund”
Bogobrush: A Biodegradable Toothbrush for the Socially Minded
Heather and John McDougall, two kids from North Dakota, grew up watching their dentist father throw himself wholeheartedly into his profession, serving on the boards of state and national dental associations. So perhaps it’s no surprise that when the McDougall kids decided to launch a company, it ended up being a toothbrush startup. But Bogobrush … Continue reading “Bogobrush: A Biodegradable Toothbrush for the Socially Minded”
A 21st-Century Bill of Consumer Product Rights
Among the great innovations of the 21st century are products that are cloud-connected and update and improve automatically. For software, gone are the days of having to buy a new version of physical media (disks or CDs). For hardware it’s the magical ability to have a product get better over time as new features are … Continue reading “A 21st-Century Bill of Consumer Product Rights”
O+ Festival Director Joins Our Dec. 12 Healthcare Gets Personal Event
A great lineup has gotten even stronger—and more inspiring. We are pleased that Joe Concra, executive director of the O+ Festival, has joined the speaker lineup at our Healthcare Gets Personal event next month. Concra joins our keynoter, Harvard personal genomics pioneer George Church, Polaris Partners and Living Proof co-founder Jon Flint, Anita Goel, CEO … Continue reading “O+ Festival Director Joins Our Dec. 12 Healthcare Gets Personal Event”
Mogl’s Anti-Hunger Games Use Peer Pressure to Put Food on Plates
With Thanksgiving just a week away, San Diego-based Mogl has overhauled its Web-based restaurant rewards program to make it easier for people to make a donation to ward off hunger in America. In the spirit of Toms, which donates a pair of shoes for every pair sold, and Warby Parker, which donates a pair of … Continue reading “Mogl’s Anti-Hunger Games Use Peer Pressure to Put Food on Plates”
Shake, Signpost, and Apprenda Nab Series A, B, and C Rounds
Companies working on digital legal agreements, software platforms, and mobile marketing for local businesses have landed funding this week in New York. On Wednesday, Shake in New York City said it raised $3 million in a Series A round led by SoftBank Capital with participation from RRE Ventures, ENIAC Ventures, BoxGroup, WGI Group, Mesa+, and … Continue reading “Shake, Signpost, and Apprenda Nab Series A, B, and C Rounds”
Hologic, Fending off Icahn, Adopts Poison Pill to Deflect Takeover
Billionaire financier and activist investor Carl Icahn has found a new target: Bedford, MA-based Hologic (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HOLX]]). Icahn today reported a 12.63 percent stake in Hologic, intending to shake things up at the women’s health products and diagnostics company. Hologic immediately responded by adopting a one-year shareholder rights plan to protect itself from a hostile … Continue reading “Hologic, Fending off Icahn, Adopts Poison Pill to Deflect Takeover”
Flagship Takes a Stab at Microbiome Therapy With Seres Health
We live every day with trillions of bacterial neighbors that do all sorts of mysterious things in our guts, good and bad. The broadening scientific understanding of the “microbiome,” powered by the modern tools of genomic analysis, has been in the news for a while. Today, Cambridge, MA-based Flagship Ventures is betting the knowledge has … Continue reading “Flagship Takes a Stab at Microbiome Therapy With Seres Health”
Look Who’s Hiring in Biotech: Companies That Are Built to Last
Many of today’s biotech companies don’t aspire to be companies at all. They’re more like temporary “virtual” projects, with skeleton crews of contractors who come together for a spell and then move on to the next thing. As others have observed, it’s much like what actors, directors and producers do to make movies in Hollywood. … Continue reading “Look Who’s Hiring in Biotech: Companies That Are Built to Last”
Boston Roundup: CoachUp, Clypd, Terrafugia, Nuance
Some startup funding news—including an unusual crowdfunding candidate—and a bit of Wall Street intrigue for a local tech giant in this week’s quick checkup on news from around the region: —CoachUp, a Boston-based startup that connects people with private sports trainers, says it has raised an additional $6.7 million in Series A investment. The round … Continue reading “Boston Roundup: CoachUp, Clypd, Terrafugia, Nuance”
Big Sale Ends Today for Our “Hardtech Revolution” Event 12/9
OK, thrill-seekers and bargain-lovers, here’s a deadline for you: today’s the last day to grab special Saver Rate tickets for our Dec. 9 event, “The Hardtech Revolution: Makers, Markets, & Mobile” hosted by AppNexus. Why should you attend? It’s the one place where you’ll get an in-depth look at the leading edge of technology innovation … Continue reading “Big Sale Ends Today for Our “Hardtech Revolution” Event 12/9″
Riding Wave of Smartphone Growth, Qualcomm Sets Course Far Ahead
Many people know that San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]] is a big technology company, but there are not many who grasp the scale of Qualcomm’s success in recent years. One big reason is that Qualcomm is not a consumer-facing technology company. The wireless giant sells its radio chips, mobile processors, and related wireless technologies to … Continue reading “Riding Wave of Smartphone Growth, Qualcomm Sets Course Far Ahead”
Amicus Wheels, Deals, Restructures Following Fabry Drug Setback
Amicus Therapeutics hinted earlier this year that some dealmaking was on the way following a regulatory setback for its lead drug that crippled its market value. Today was apparently the day it had in mind. Cranbury, NJ-based Amicus (NASDAQ: [[ticker:FOLD]]) today announced a series of strategic moves, including an acquisition, an equity investment, and a … Continue reading “Amicus Wheels, Deals, Restructures Following Fabry Drug Setback”
Slideshow: Big Insight—Making Sense of Big Data in Seattle
There are a wide range of people and companies working on many aspects of the big data challenge in Seattle and we heard from many of them at a packed event Tuesday. Thanks to all of our speakers, attendees, and sponsors for helping make Big Insight—Making Sense of Big Data in Seattle a successful event. … Continue reading “Slideshow: Big Insight—Making Sense of Big Data in Seattle”
LabCentral, New Biotech Incubator, Opens up in Kendall Square
Aspiring biotech entrepreneurs in Kendall Square now have a new place to set up shop. LabCentral, the non-profit organization set up this year to provide lab space to Boston-area life sciences innovators, has officially opened its doors. The 28,000-square-foot facility has enough lab and office space to house as many as 25 startups and 100 … Continue reading “LabCentral, New Biotech Incubator, Opens up in Kendall Square”
ZS Pharma Passes Key Test With Drug for Hyperkalemia
[Corrected 11/22/13, 1:55 pm. See below.] Chronic kidney disease affects 26 million patients in the U.S., and they spend a lot of money trying to manage the condition. Fort Worth, TX-based ZS Pharma is betting that it might have one more new option to help many of these patients. ZS Pharma reported earlier this month that … Continue reading “ZS Pharma Passes Key Test With Drug for Hyperkalemia”
Reverb Taps Its Word Graph to Reinvent Reader Apps on the iPad
If you’re a news junkie, chances are you don’t get all your content from a single source—but neither do you have time to surf to dozens of different websites. Back in the 1990s, sites like Yahoo and Excite offered a solution: they became portals, one-stop shops aggregating news from across the Web. Yahoo is still … Continue reading “Reverb Taps Its Word Graph to Reinvent Reader Apps on the iPad”
Varsity News Network Aims to be “ESPN.com for High School Sports”
After Varsity News Network (VNN) was announced last week as the grand prize winner of the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, it may have been a surprise to those of us who aren’t familiar with the entrepreneurial scene on the West side of the state. But it turns out VNN, the Web-based platform promoting high school sports, … Continue reading “Varsity News Network Aims to be “ESPN.com for High School Sports””
Onswipe, with New CEO Onboard, Rolls Out New Platform for More Devices
Change has come fast and furious at Onswipe. The New York-based company unveiled the new version of its platform today, less than a week after hiring Jonty Kelt as its new CEO. Last Friday, Onswipe founder Jason Baptiste moved into the chief marketing officer position, clearing the way for the change. Kelt was CEO and … Continue reading “Onswipe, with New CEO Onboard, Rolls Out New Platform for More Devices”
To Tell the Story of Innovation in Detroit, Xconomy Needs Your Help
Whenever I’m describing Xconomy to someone who hasn’t come across our website before, I rattle off the names of the eight high-tech hubs where we have bureaus, in the order we opened them: Boston, Seattle, San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco, New York, Boulder/Denver, and Texas. At that point, the listener usually exclaims “Detroit! Why Detroit?” … Continue reading “To Tell the Story of Innovation in Detroit, Xconomy Needs Your Help”
Raizlabs Turns 10: Lessons in Mobile, Bootstrapping, and Hiring
Greg Raiz is all about the slow burn. When he started Raizlabs back in 2003, his father (a software guy) asked whether the startup would be bootstrapped or venture-backed. The former he called “slow burn”—steady growth that could last a while and eventually grow into a big flame. As opposed to “fast burn”—pour gas on … Continue reading “Raizlabs Turns 10: Lessons in Mobile, Bootstrapping, and Hiring”
Vertex Sells Hep C Drug Royalty Rights to Janssen for $152M
Vertex Pharmaceuticals waved the white flag for its once high-flying hepatitis C drug last month. Now it’s pooling as much cash from that program as it can to help concentrate its efforts in cystic fibrosis. Cambridge, MA-based Vertex (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRTX]]) said today that it has sold its non-North America royalty rights to telaprevir (sold as … Continue reading “Vertex Sells Hep C Drug Royalty Rights to Janssen for $152M”
Moderna Vacuums Up Another $110M to Make Messenger RNA Drugs
Moderna Therapeutics doesn’t need cash to keep the doors open, like many biotech startups. It just went out and raised a ton of dough, anyway. The Cambridge, MA-based biotech startup, which is attempting to make injectable messenger RNA molecules that trigger production of protein drugs in the body, has raised a whopping $110 million in … Continue reading “Moderna Vacuums Up Another $110M to Make Messenger RNA Drugs”
A Few Good Mentors: A DIY Mentor Program for Startup Communities
I’m going to go out on a limb here. I guarantee that good startup mentors exist everywhere, even in your neck of the woods. Without any more evidence than my personal experience—working alongside hundreds of mentors and entrepreneurs around the globe, including such far-off places as Brussels, Moscow, and Kuala Lumpur—I’m willing to bet there … Continue reading “A Few Good Mentors: A DIY Mentor Program for Startup Communities”
Just Two Days Left to Save Big on “Hardtech Revolution” Tickets
There’s only one event in New York that will give you an up-close look at the most innovative companies bridging the digital and physical worlds: Xconomy’s latest half-day forum, “The Hardtech Revolution: Makers, Markets, & Mobile” happening Dec. 9 at AppNexus. And there’s just two days left to get the special Saver Rate, so make … Continue reading “Just Two Days Left to Save Big on “Hardtech Revolution” Tickets”