This is a micro-trend among Boston-area entrepreneurs and VC firms: the latter hiring the former. Unica founder and ex-IBM exec Yuchun Lee is joining General Catalyst Partners as an entrepreneur in residence, where he’ll work with the venture firm’s growth equity team on enterprise software and analytics companies. Lee co-founded Unica back in 1992 and … Continue reading “Unica Founder and MIT Blackjack Alum Yuchun Lee Joins General Catalyst”
Category: National
Let Them Eat Code: Scenes from the Food Hackathon
On Monday we told you about the winners of last weekend’s first-ever Food Hackathon in San Francisco. Today we’ve got some photos of the event to share with you, courtesy of photographer Tony XQ Chen, a producer at Founderly. The Hackathon was a chance for some 170 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and food lovers to get together … Continue reading “Let Them Eat Code: Scenes from the Food Hackathon”
Startup Communities Are Messy: Highlights & Slideshow with Brad Feld
(Xconomy contributor Juliet Preston helped pull this story together) It’s one thing to read a leading tech investor’s new book on building entrepreneurial ecosystems, and another thing altogether to host him in a sweet living room art gallery with a couple dozen of San Diego’s tech leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs. With help from the Cooley … Continue reading “Startup Communities Are Messy: Highlights & Slideshow with Brad Feld”
Venture Deals Neared $7B in First Quarter, Up From 2012
We recently looked at which venture capitalists were raising money last quarter. Now we’ve got some insight into how they spent it. Research firm CB Insights says it tracked $6.9 billion in VC investments nationwide in the first quarter of this year, spread across 841 deals. Those totals represented a steady pace compared with the … Continue reading “Venture Deals Neared $7B in First Quarter, Up From 2012”
WellTok Raises $18.7M Series B to Gamify Healthcare, Gets New CEO
If your health insurance company has you playing games, you’re probably not happy. If you talk about insurance or healthcare to your friends on a social network, the odds are you’re complaining. But a growing number of companies are trying to change that by improving consumers’ experiences and engaging them—in part through gaming and social … Continue reading “WellTok Raises $18.7M Series B to Gamify Healthcare, Gets New CEO”
PowerClip Charges up NY Tech Meetup with an Idea for Emergencies
Last night’s New York Tech Meetup offered a plethora of novel technology, including a demo by a group of bright 11th graders working on an electronic wrist band to help the blind with eating. The crowd got a surge, though, from PowerClip, a device used in emergencies to turn car batteries into sources of power … Continue reading “PowerClip Charges up NY Tech Meetup with an Idea for Emergencies”
Llamasoft Continues Push Into Chinese Market With Mengniu Deal
Llamasoft, the Ann Arbor-based supply chain software company, announced this week that it has inked a deal with Mengniu, one of China’s leading dairy producers. Mengniu will use Llamasoft’s Supply Chain Guru product to manage its 20 production plants located throughout China. Rabobank ranked Mengniu the 18th largest dairy producer in the world. The terms … Continue reading “Llamasoft Continues Push Into Chinese Market With Mengniu Deal”
The Ultimate “Lean In”: Starting Your Own Company
Sheryl Sandberg brings a much-needed voice to the table on female leadership. She speaks from the vantage point of a strong executive who has made her way to the top. Her concept of leaning in and not leaving before you leave is important, but all this comes from an employee’s view. About four years ago, … Continue reading “The Ultimate “Lean In”: Starting Your Own Company”
Lighting the Way to Better Understanding of the Brain
We are enamored by our brains. Arguably the most complex system in the universe that is made up of over 80 billion neurons, the brain is a complex organ that can be a source of marvel and devastation, from human consciousness to neurodegenerative disease. The triumph of overcoming brain disease and injury is captivating: Neuroscientist … Continue reading “Lighting the Way to Better Understanding of the Brain”
Boston Roundup: Care.com, Kendall Square, SavingStar
Some hiring, regulation, and investing news around the Boston area in the past few days: —Care.com, the heavily-financed operator of online caregiver search services, is stoking more speculation of an upcoming IPO. This time, it’s because the company has hired former iRobot financial chief John Leahy as its new CFO. Care.com has raised more than … Continue reading “Boston Roundup: Care.com, Kendall Square, SavingStar”
TripAdvisor Picks Up Jetsetter from Gilt
A little bit of property changing hands in the online travel sector: Newton, MA-based TripAdvisor is buying travel-deals site Jetsetter from Gilt, a New York e-commerce startup. No terms were given for the deal, but BetaBeat reported last fall that Gilt had been shopping Jetsetter for $30 million-$50 million. The sale to TripAdvisor was also … Continue reading “TripAdvisor Picks Up Jetsetter from Gilt”
San Diego’s Innovation Establishment Faces Its Own Innovators’ Dilemma
Can San Diego re-invent itself as a capital of innovation? San Diego established itself as an innovation hub decades ago—understanding early on the importance of technology clusters in creating a critical mass of self-sustaining innovation. Today it is still renowned as a hotbed for hundreds of life sciences startups (We Are the Wildcatters) and as … Continue reading “San Diego’s Innovation Establishment Faces Its Own Innovators’ Dilemma”
Cengage Learning: Digitizing the World’s Libraries from SE Michigan
How many of us in Detroit are aware that one of the world’s biggest players in the digitization of school and library resources is located right in our backyard? Cengage Learning has spent almost 60 years growing its publishing business, first in Detroit and now in Farmington Hills. “It’s not well-known that such a large global … Continue reading “Cengage Learning: Digitizing the World’s Libraries from SE Michigan”
Montreal’s Busbud Spending the Spring in NY to Work on Bus Travel App
Making his way south from Montreal, Busbud CEO Louis-Philippe Maurice arrived in New York in March along with a handful of other Canadian digital media startups, as part of the Canadian Technology Accelerator program called CTA@NYC. “The idea is to accelerate business development and to expand the reach of your business into the United States,” … Continue reading “Montreal’s Busbud Spending the Spring in NY to Work on Bus Travel App”
Last Chance to Sign Up for Silicon Valley’s Best Robotics Event
You love robots but you haven’t yet bought a ticket for Xconomy’s April 11 robotics event, Robots Remake the Workplace. Why the heck not? Actually, we know why—you’re busy, you like to keep your options open until the last minute, yadda yadda. Well, I’m posting this to let you know that you don’t have much … Continue reading “Last Chance to Sign Up for Silicon Valley’s Best Robotics Event”
New World of Crowdfunding Waits as SEC Struggles to Complete its Job
Almost exactly one year ago, a new age for entrepreneurs and investors was supposed to have begun. On April 5, 2012, President Barack Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Startup Businesses, or JOBS Act, into law. Among the act’s provisions were changes to regulations governing how entrepreneurs, startups, and small companies could raise money through crowdfunding … Continue reading “New World of Crowdfunding Waits as SEC Struggles to Complete its Job”
TechSandBox Looking to Rally Entrepreneurs in Boston’s MetroWest
Here’s a concept: a Boston-area startup incubator outside of Route 128. What’s outside 128, you ask? A whole lot of experienced technology and life sciences workers, that’s what. And some of them want to start new companies, without commuting every day into the rush-hour hell that is Boston and Cambridge. That’s the impetus behind TechSandBox, … Continue reading “TechSandBox Looking to Rally Entrepreneurs in Boston’s MetroWest”
More Fuel for the New Database Wars: ParElastic Raises $5.7M
Online, on-demand computing power has transformed the way businesses and everyday people use software and data storage. Just ask techies who had to buy racks of servers just to start their dot-com-era companies, or one of us poor suckers who remembers shelling out for those cardboard-boxed PC applications. But the formula of seamlessly delivered, constantly … Continue reading “More Fuel for the New Database Wars: ParElastic Raises $5.7M”
Reverse Engineering the Mind with Brain Corp. CEO Eugene Izhikevich
The brain initiative that President Obama unfurled last week calls for spending over $100 million a year on neuroscience research over the next decade, including the development of innovative neurotechnologies to gain new insights into the way the brain works. As the Salk Institute neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski put it, “This is the start of the … Continue reading “Reverse Engineering the Mind with Brain Corp. CEO Eugene Izhikevich”
See Clay Siegall, Kim Popovits, Mitch Gold This Afternoon
We’re getting ready to head over to Northeastern University’s new South Lake Union office later this afternoon for our big spring life sciences event, “Biotech in the Belt-Tightening Era.” Registration starts at 1 pm, and while more than 170 people are signed up, there is still some room to get tickets at the door. There … Continue reading “See Clay Siegall, Kim Popovits, Mitch Gold This Afternoon”
Ziopharm Goes Lean to Stretch Funds for New Synthetic Biology Focus
New York-based Ziopharm Oncology (NASDAQ: ZIOP), which once seemed on the runway toward its first product approval for a relatively conventional cancer drug, is now buying itself time to sell Wall Street on a new mission to pioneer a cutting-edge technology. Ziopharm, which has an office in the Boston area, slashed its workforce by about … Continue reading “Ziopharm Goes Lean to Stretch Funds for New Synthetic Biology Focus”
Food Hackers Cook Up a Storm of Startup Ideas in San Francisco
File this under “more evidence that food-tech is one of the hottest areas for Bay Area entrepeneurs.” A weekend Food Hackathon contest at SOMACentral’s new 450 Townsend Street space attracted some 170 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and food lovers for 30 hours of brainstorming and frantic coding, culminating in a pitchfest late Sunday afternoon with $25,000 … Continue reading “Food Hackers Cook Up a Storm of Startup Ideas in San Francisco”
Roche & Isis Join Forces on Antisense Drug for Huntington’s Disease
San Diego’s Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ISIS]]) and Roche, the Swiss Pharmaceuticals giant) have formed an alliance to develop new treatments for Huntington’s disease, according to a statement released today. Roche agreed to pay Isis $30 million upfront, with potential revenue from licensing and milestone payments totaling $362 million. In addition, Isis would get tiered royalties … Continue reading “Roche & Isis Join Forces on Antisense Drug for Huntington’s Disease”
ReapSo: Spin to Win Discounts, Loyalty Rewards
Ever since the advent of Groupon, it seems like startups across the land are tripping over one another trying to be the next big thing in deals that drive customers into businesses. Jumping into the fray is ReapSo, a Farmington Hills, MI-based company started in 2012 by Bill Wildern and Steve Valentine, two self-described automotive … Continue reading “ReapSo: Spin to Win Discounts, Loyalty Rewards”
Elder Care, iPad Toys, & Food: Inside the HBS New Venture Competition
Business plan competitions are in full bloom at colleges and universities around Boston. One of the most prominent ones, at Harvard Business School, got a facelift this year and is in the process of selecting its semifinalists. The program is now called the HBS New Venture Competition (fka Business Plan Contest). The name change seems … Continue reading “Elder Care, iPad Toys, & Food: Inside the HBS New Venture Competition”
The Publishing Industrial Complex is Dead. Long Live the Publishers!
When Fred Wilson wrote about Simplified Content Marketing, he got hundreds of comments, many of them saying essentially that this was nothing new. They are wrong. There’s something really dramatically new going on, but the shift is so massive, so tectonic, that it’s a little hard to even see while being in the middle of … Continue reading “The Publishing Industrial Complex is Dead. Long Live the Publishers!”
Blueprint Health Demo Day Reveals Ideas for Hospital Efficiency
Graduating its third group of startups, the Blueprint Health accelerator in New York is increasingly making its presence known beyond the city. Late last week, 11 companies pitched their technology at a demo day that included platforms for improving efficiency at hospitals and giving medical device companies more ways to connect with physicians. Mat Farkash, … Continue reading “Blueprint Health Demo Day Reveals Ideas for Hospital Efficiency”
San Diego’s Ambrx Working with Astellas to Develop Anti-Cancer Drugs
San Diego-based Ambrx says it’s getting an upfront payment of $15 million under a deal with Japan’s Astellas to help develop an undisclosed number of targets for antibody drug conjugates in cancer. The collaboration could bring an additional $285 million in potential near and long-term research, development, regulatory and sales-based milestones. A spokeswoman for Ambrx … Continue reading “San Diego’s Ambrx Working with Astellas to Develop Anti-Cancer Drugs”
MA Venture Firms Lead the Way in Slow Q1 Fundraising
Three Boston-area venture capital firms led the nation in VC fundraising during the first quarter of this year, a slow period that reflects continued retraction and consolidation in the venture industry. In their latest quarterly report on VC fundraising, Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association say that some 35 venture funds raised nearly … Continue reading “MA Venture Firms Lead the Way in Slow Q1 Fundraising”
Boston Biotech Seizes the Momentum: The Photos
New York is the place to build a career in finance. LA is the place for entertainment. And now Greater Boston is increasingly becoming the hottest place for all things biotech. This story has been evolving for decades, and Boston/Cambridge/Waltham et al. spent many of those years as a respected No. 2 hub behind San … Continue reading “Boston Biotech Seizes the Momentum: The Photos”
The Brain Map Shouldn’t Get $100M a Year. It Should Get Much More
The human brain, as Francis Collins recently said, “is the most complicated organ in the universe.” We only have vague ideas today of how it works at the level of genes, and neural circuits. Deeper understanding could help us unravel some of today’s great mysteries, from autism to Alzheimer’s to epilepsy. The sequencing of the … Continue reading “The Brain Map Shouldn’t Get $100M a Year. It Should Get Much More”
Student Teams Working on Environmental Innovation Inspire
You can’t help but be inspired after spending a couple of hours with the 20 Northwest student teams at the UW Environmental Innovation Challenge. Despite the shortcomings of our education system at multiple levels, rising tuition, and laments about diminishing American technological competitiveness, here is a group of talented, motivated young people thinking hard about … Continue reading “Student Teams Working on Environmental Innovation Inspire”
Boulder Tech Companies Looking for Job Seekers Ready to Take Flight
Come enjoy beautiful Boulder, Colorado, America’s best place to live—on us. That’s the message a handful of entrepreneurs and supporters are trying to spread with this year’s Boulder Startup Week, which will run from May 15 to 19. The event, now in its fourth year, has evolved into a festival that’s equal parts party, networking … Continue reading “Boulder Tech Companies Looking for Job Seekers Ready to Take Flight”
AlphaCore Acquired by AstraZeneca’s MedImmune
AlphaCore Pharma, an Ann Arbor-based biotech company working on a drug to treat atherosclerosis, announced this week that it has been acquired by MedImmune, the biologics division of the Delaware-based pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sparking AstraZeneca’s interest is AlphaCore’s ACP-501, a recombinant human lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) enzyme, which … Continue reading “AlphaCore Acquired by AstraZeneca’s MedImmune”
3 Takeaways from Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” Tour
I haven’t read all of Sheryl Sandberg’s book yet. I’m not on Facebook. Also, I’m a man. That makes me a perfect commentator for her “Lean In” book tour, which hit Boston this week. Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, spoke to a crowd of several hundred entrepreneurs, investors, and startup/marketing folks at the … Continue reading “3 Takeaways from Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” Tour”
Eye on the Living Room: How Dropcam Makes Surveillance Feel Safe
Ten years ago this month, I edited a cover story for MIT’s Technology Review magazine called “Surveillance Nation.” Written by veteran science journalist Charles Mann and network security guru Dan Farmer, the story looked at the state of digital video circa 2003 and envisaged a near future where every home, business, and street would be … Continue reading “Eye on the Living Room: How Dropcam Makes Surveillance Feel Safe”
East Coast Life Sciences Roundup: Optimer, Bind, Pfizer, and More
The life sciences clusters around New York and Boston may sometimes act like rivals, but they also have plenty of reasons to work together. This week was marked by deals and cross-fertilizations between big pharmaceutical companies in the wider New York metropolitan area and small biotechnology companies in Cambridge, MA. As for the East Coast-West … Continue reading “East Coast Life Sciences Roundup: Optimer, Bind, Pfizer, and More”
Crash Course for Colorado Biotech Entrepreneurs Coming April 18
Who said startup accelerators and boot camps were just for software companies? The Colorado BioScience Association will host a two-day “BioBoot Camp” in Denver on April 18 and 19. The event is intended to help scientists and entrepreneurs who are doing promising research understand how to commercialize their discoveries and build companies. The program is … Continue reading “Crash Course for Colorado Biotech Entrepreneurs Coming April 18”
Revitalization or Ruin: What Does Detroit’s Future Look Like?
Four years ago this week, I put the deposit down on my first apartment in Detroit. I had been spending an increasing amount of time in the city on weekends, and every time I visited, I felt—at the risk of sounding corny here—a connection forming. The city had just plain gotten under my skin. Something … Continue reading “Revitalization or Ruin: What Does Detroit’s Future Look Like?”
New Accelerator Crowdfundx Kicks Off in NY with Plans to Go Global
Players from the crowdfunding and innovation community came together Thursday at the General Assembly campus in New York to announce a new accelerator called Crowdfundx (stylized as CROWDFUNDx). Folks from Startup Weekend, Social Media Week, the Startup America Partnership, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, and Crowdfunder will serve as the backbone for Crowdfundx. The … Continue reading “New Accelerator Crowdfundx Kicks Off in NY with Plans to Go Global”
San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Qualcomm, Amylin, Organovo & More
San Diego’s emerging agricultural biotech cluster has added three new companies, with DSM, ZeaKal, and Algenetix setting down roots here. I’ve got details about them below, along with the rest of the life sciences news over the past week. —A White House initiative to spend $1 billion over the next decade to map the brain … Continue reading “San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Qualcomm, Amylin, Organovo & More”
Social Media Monitor Gnip Grows With Reddit, Instagram, Bitly Feeds
The amount of information companies can glean from social media is getting broader, its impact is reaching deeper, and the number of sources businesses need to follow is growing. To keep up, Gnip, one of the leading collectors and providers of social media data, has added new feeds from six companies, including Reddit and Instagram, … Continue reading “Social Media Monitor Gnip Grows With Reddit, Instagram, Bitly Feeds”
Now is the Time to Push for a Robot-Assisted Surgery Revolution
As recently reported in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Bloomberg News, there is a controversy brewing over robotic surgery and whether it is superior to alternative surgical approaches. Robotic training practices have also been questioned and it has been debated whether surgeons are receiving enough supervised cases before flying solo. What … Continue reading “Now is the Time to Push for a Robot-Assisted Surgery Revolution”
Boston Tech Roundup: Attune, Cognex, GreenBytes, LevelUp, & More
Here we go, catching up on an insanely busy news and events week in Boston. (That’s it, Curt, no more vacations.) —Cognex (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CGNX]]), the Natick, MA-based computer-vision tech company (which I always forget is locally based), filed a lawsuit against Renton, WA-based Microscan over alleged patent infringement. You can read the details in the … Continue reading “Boston Tech Roundup: Attune, Cognex, GreenBytes, LevelUp, & More”
Ignition Partners Raises $150M, Expands to Silicon Valley
Bellevue, WA-based Ignition Partners has raised a $150 million fund to make early-stage investments in enterprise technology companies, mainly on the West Coast, and is opening a second office in Palo Alto, CA. Ignition Venture Partners V, which was oversubscribed and was raised in less than three months, is significantly smaller than Ignition’s $400 million … Continue reading “Ignition Partners Raises $150M, Expands to Silicon Valley”
Tealium Raises $15.6M from Tenaya, Battery, and Presidio Ventures
San Diego-based Tealium, which provides Web-based website tag management services, says today it has raised $15.6 million in a Series C round of venture funding. Tenaya Capital, with offices in Woodside, CA, and Wellesley, MA, led the round, which was joined by existing investor Battery Ventures and Presidio Ventures, the venture capital arm of Japan’s … Continue reading “Tealium Raises $15.6M from Tenaya, Battery, and Presidio Ventures”
U-M’s Month of Entrepreneurship Seeks to Engage Entire Campus
The University of Michigan is attempting to bring its nationally recognized entrepreneurship efforts to the entire 43,000-member student body during its Month of Entrepreneurship, which, with events in February and March, is technically now stretching into a third month due to popular demand. It’s only the fourth time something like this has been done in … Continue reading “U-M’s Month of Entrepreneurship Seeks to Engage Entire Campus”
Sierra Nevada Corp. Building Space Industry Around “Dream Chaser”
This year, the first completed Dream Chaser test vehicle is slated to undergo its first unmanned drop-flight tests from 12,000 feet at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California. The Dream Chaser is the only winged spacecraft still in NASA’s commercial crew program competition, and the only space plane in development that will carry humans … Continue reading “Sierra Nevada Corp. Building Space Industry Around “Dream Chaser””
With Brain Corp., Qualcomm Started Computing Like a Neuron Years Ago
When President Obama stepped before the media yesterday to unveil a $100 million initiative to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind, Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob was among the experts who gathered to watch in the East Room of the White House. The president said he had invited some of the smartest people in the … Continue reading “With Brain Corp., Qualcomm Started Computing Like a Neuron Years Ago”
TV Apps Aim to Channel the Flood of Online Video
A telling moment for the future of 9×9.tv, a video discovery startup headquartered in Silicon Valley, came in January. That’s when chief operating officer Jack Chang bumped into a YouTube product manager inside the Samsung pavilion at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The employee was running a YouTube kiosk inside the Samsung booth, … Continue reading “TV Apps Aim to Channel the Flood of Online Video”