The Michigan State University Bioeconomy Institute in Holland, MI announced earlier this month that, in an effort to establish a cluster of biotech businesses, it is the recipient of more than $1 million in grants: $580,000 from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration and $500,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. The grants will … Continue reading “MSU Bioeconomy Institute Snags State and Federal Funding For Proof of Concept Center”
Category: National
A Computer That Knows How You Feel? See Roz Picard’s Affectiva Demo at 6×6 Thursday
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and behold…the eighth wonder of the world. No, not King Kong, I’m afraid. But how about a computer that can read and interpret human emotions and mental states? That would be from Affectiva, a Boston-area startup co-founded by Roz Picard, a 20-year veteran of the MIT Media Lab. Picard … Continue reading “A Computer That Knows How You Feel? See Roz Picard’s Affectiva Demo at 6×6 Thursday”
Infinity Pharmaceuticals Snags $50M Extension From Mundipharma
Cambridge, MA-based Infinity Pharmaceuticals has found a way to secure more than $50 million for its R&D programs, through an extension of its partnership with Mundipharma. Infinity (NASDAQ: [[ticker:INFI]]) said today that Mundipharma has committed more than $50 million in 2013 to the development of drug candidates from Infinity’s pipeline, including IPI-145, a molecule designed … Continue reading “Infinity Pharmaceuticals Snags $50M Extension From Mundipharma”
VMTurbo Revs Up With $10M More from Bain, Highland
Waltham, MA-based VMTurbo, a maker of virtualization management software, said today it has closed $10 million in Series B financing led by previous investors Bain Capital Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. The company says it will use the new money to expand its product development, customer support, sales, and marketing. It has raised $17.5 million … Continue reading “VMTurbo Revs Up With $10M More from Bain, Highland”
Skyhook and Symantec Team Up on Anti-Theft Service for Devices
Anti-theft technology for mobile devices just got smarter. Boston-based Skyhook Wireless announced today that its location-finding software has been deployed by Mountain View, CA-based Symantec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SYMC]]) in its new Norton Anti-Theft Web service. Financial details weren’t given, but the arrangement will put Skyhook’s software on more devices over a broader range of applications—namely, security. … Continue reading “Skyhook and Symantec Team Up on Anti-Theft Service for Devices”
Mobile Madness NW: the Big Agenda and Your Last Chance to Save on Tickets
From innovative games and e-commerce platforms to operating systems and cloud infrastructure—not to mention the networks that keep all that data flowing—innovators in the Pacific Northwest stand at the intersection of nearly every powerful force in mobile computing. That’s why we’re so excited for our next big Seattle tech event, Mobile Madness Northwest, coming up … Continue reading “Mobile Madness NW: the Big Agenda and Your Last Chance to Save on Tickets”
EZBZ in Talks for Seed Funding Less than One Month after Launch
Shana Schlossberg believes her startup, EZBZ in New York, can help small businesses reach customers at the moment they are needed most. With its Web portal that launched on Nov. 8, EZBZ lets consumers post requests for goods and professional services that rival businesses make competing bids on as potential providers. Thus far, EZBZ is … Continue reading “EZBZ in Talks for Seed Funding Less than One Month after Launch”
Alkermes Spinoff, Civitas, Gets Michael J. Fox Support for Inhalable Parkinson’s Drug
For decades, people with Parkinson’s disease have been taking L-dopa pills to keep symptoms of the neurodegenerative disease under control. But now the Michael J. Fox Foundation is betting that a new form of the drug can be inhaled into the lungs to provide fast relief when the old standby isn’t getting the job done. … Continue reading “Alkermes Spinoff, Civitas, Gets Michael J. Fox Support for Inhalable Parkinson’s Drug”
Some Notes on Immunex
I received a call from Steve Duzan in the spring of 1981 saying that he had been offered the position of CEO of a new company, Immunex. If he accepted, he wanted to know if I would be willing to be outside legal counsel. He briefly told me that Immunex was a biotech company being … Continue reading “Some Notes on Immunex”
Nanigans Aims to Offer Up-to-Minute Insight for Facebook Ad Campaigns
Serial entrepreneur Ric Calvillo had planned to stay away from enterprise customers with his newest venture. He’s now CEO of Nanigans, a Boston-based startup that offers a Facebook advertising platform for enterprise customers with a couple thousand dollars to spend a day on online ads. Oops. “We’re scaling right now with large accounts,” he says. … Continue reading “Nanigans Aims to Offer Up-to-Minute Insight for Facebook Ad Campaigns”
After Thanksgiving Flareup, AT&T and T-Mobile Endgame Unchanged
While most of us were sleeping off the effects off too much turkey and pumpkin pie, AT&T and federal regulators were engaging in a very public spat over Ma Bell’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA. But now that things have simmered down a bit, it actually looks like the prospects for this deal haven’t changed … Continue reading “After Thanksgiving Flareup, AT&T and T-Mobile Endgame Unchanged”
Ruling Ends Core Patent Dispute Between Cross-Town Rivals, SkinMedica and Histogen
A federal court ruling issued before the Thanksgiving holiday appears likely to end nearly three years of patent litigation between Histogen, a San Diego regenerative medicine startup, and Carlsbad, CA-based SkinMedica, which provides cosmetics and skin-care products. “We are happy to now have this matter officially behind us,” Histogen founder and CEO Gail Naughton says … Continue reading “Ruling Ends Core Patent Dispute Between Cross-Town Rivals, SkinMedica and Histogen”
The Xconomy Report on WGBH: $10M for RunKeeper, Wolfram at Thursday’s 6×6 Event, & More
Xconomy continues its partnership with WGBH to bring you the latest and greatest in news from Boston’s innovation community. Have a listen to find out about software that may help you work off that Thanksgiving feast, investments in companies that make high-power lasers and plant-harvesting robots, and the Xconomy quote of the week. Plus, get … Continue reading “The Xconomy Report on WGBH: $10M for RunKeeper, Wolfram at Thursday’s 6×6 Event, & More”
Autodesk Labs Builds Tools for Capturing Reality—And Improving On It
If you had to boil down Autodesk‘s business to a few simple words, it might be “helping people create new realities”—whether that means constructing new objects or structures first envisioned on the company’s computer-aided design (CAD) programs or generating new Avatar-like movie worlds using its modeling and animation software. But increasingly, the first step in … Continue reading “Autodesk Labs Builds Tools for Capturing Reality—And Improving On It”
Media Roundtable: Xconomy on GeekWire Radio
I had a great time on the latest edition of the GeekWire podcast and radio show, the regular program produced by KIRO-FM featuring longtime Seattle technology journalists Todd Bishop and John Cook. We talked about the local tech beat, and what I’ve noticed as a reporter making the transition from my previous gig covering politics … Continue reading “Media Roundtable: Xconomy on GeekWire Radio”
Rib-X Pharma Files for IPO
New Haven, CT-based Rib-X Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the SEC for an initial public offering. The company, which is developing antibiotics, has yet to determine the number of shares it will offer or the price range. Deutsche Bank Securities will manage the offering, with assistance from William Blair … Continue reading “Rib-X Pharma Files for IPO”
Mellmo Expands, Larry Smarr Talks Health, & More San Diego BizTech News
Contrary to what you might expect, the pace of tech news out of San Diego didn’t slow down much before the Thanksgiving Holiday. We still managed to round it all up, though, and our briefing begins here. —As director of the UC system’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CalIT2), Larry Smarr is an … Continue reading “Mellmo Expands, Larry Smarr Talks Health, & More San Diego BizTech News”
Social Passport Goes After Retailers and Consumers with Its Own Take on Loyalty Cards and Deals
New York’s Social Passport wants to appeal to retailers and restaurateurs who are not quite sold on the other check-in deal programs on the market. CEO David Merel founded the startup last December and brought his company’s technology out of beta this October. Thus far Social Passport has raised some $350,000 from angel investors, and … Continue reading “Social Passport Goes After Retailers and Consumers with Its Own Take on Loyalty Cards and Deals”
MedicalRecords.com Looks to Cash In on Health Software “Gold Rush”
What exactly is MedicalRecords.com? A health database? A doctors’ community? An encyclopedia site? Not exactly. It’s a lead generation startup for the electronic medical records sector. Sound boring or cryptic? Here’s why it’s not. The U.S. government set aside about $27 billion through 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to incentivize doctors to move patient … Continue reading “MedicalRecords.com Looks to Cash In on Health Software “Gold Rush””
Cracking the Entrepreneur Code
[Editor’s Note: This article is a lightly edited transcript of a talk delivered by Ryan Howard, founder and CEO of Practice Fusion, at Morgenthaler Ventures’ DC to VC Healthcare IT Showcase on September 22, 2011.] At Practice Fusion, it took us three years to get to our first million dollars in revenue. Electronic health records … Continue reading “Cracking the Entrepreneur Code”
Five Lessons Immunex Taught Me
What happens when a biotech company disappears? We think that the Web remembers everything. Do a search on Wikipedia for Immunex and you get Amgen, with little mention of Immunex at all. The results of over 500 publications and several thousand employees over 20 years are pretty much invisible on the largest collection of facts … Continue reading “Five Lessons Immunex Taught Me”
Versant Ventures’ Partner Cuts Back on Biotech Work to Spend Time With Family. For Real
You learn early in journalism that when a business leader says he or she is resigning to “spend more time with family,” it’s usually baloney. Maybe they clashed with colleagues, got a better job somewhere else, or are bailing out from a sinking ship. The shades of gray are rarely discussed publicly. Yet Versant Ventures’ … Continue reading “Versant Ventures’ Partner Cuts Back on Biotech Work to Spend Time With Family. For Real”
Decide, Avalara, Brad Feld: Pre-Turkey Gems from the Seattle Tech Scene
In a remarkable test of will, I’m going to avoid any Thanksgiving-related puns and just dive straight into this wrapup of the past week in Xconomy Seattle’s tech headlines, covering everything from Black Friday shopping apps to the latest rumblings of possible doom from a local wireless company. —The crew at Seattle startup Decide made … Continue reading “Decide, Avalara, Brad Feld: Pre-Turkey Gems from the Seattle Tech Scene”
The Green Garage Hopes To Incubate Urban Sustainability in Detroit
For months, we watched the renovations and wondered what the heck they were turning that building a few doors down from the Bronx bar into. A Whole Foods, someone said. A bike shop, the construction worker lounging outside the building two summers ago told me confidently. Finally, we divined a name from the sign posted … Continue reading “The Green Garage Hopes To Incubate Urban Sustainability in Detroit”
With $30M Venture Round, Mellmo Adds Global Offices, New Publishing Capability
Mellmo began life on the move. Now the Solana Beach, CA-based startup is going global. Mellmo, as we’ve explained before, provides business intelligence for mobile users. Its flagship product, Roambi Analytics, is a Web-based service that converts mind-numbing business data from spreadsheets and databases into simple-but-compelling graphic displays—pie charts, bar charts, list views, card index … Continue reading “With $30M Venture Round, Mellmo Adds Global Offices, New Publishing Capability”
A Video Feast: Foodspotting, Foodzie Headline a Food Startup Gathering in San Francisco
Let’s face it: Your whole Thanksgiving weekend is going to be about food. So you might as well start a day early by watching the video below, which captures the entirety of the Food Startups Meetup I moderated last week in downtown San Francisco. Where else, after all, are you going to see the founders … Continue reading “A Video Feast: Foodspotting, Foodzie Headline a Food Startup Gathering in San Francisco”
Lascaux, Funded by Betaworks, Launches Social Art App Mixel for iPad
There are plenty of art and photo-sharing websites and apps on the market, but New York startup Lascaux Co. believes its free app Mixel offers a fresh angle by letting users share images to create collages. The company was co-founded by Khoi Vinh, former digital design director with The New York Times, and Scott Ostler, … Continue reading “Lascaux, Funded by Betaworks, Launches Social Art App Mixel for iPad”
What Happens When a Herd of VCs Runs Away From Biotech? Highlights From Yesterday’s Tweetchat
[Corrected: 8:41 am ET] Turns out you can say a whole lot about the biotech venture capital crisis in 140 characters or less. Yesterday, Xconomy hosted a lively back-and-forth on the state of life sciences investing and innovation with guest Daphne Zohar (@daphnezohar), the founder and managing partner of Boston-based PureTech Ventures. I tried to … Continue reading “What Happens When a Herd of VCs Runs Away From Biotech? Highlights From Yesterday’s Tweetchat”
PBS NewsHour Features Xconomy in Report on Startup Accelerators
In a segment featured Tuesday night on the PBS NewsHour, correspondent Hari Sreenivasan brings an outsider’s curiosity to the strange, wonderful world of startup accelerators. The eight-minute report features Sreenivasan’s interviews with entrepreneurs and mentors at TechStars, AngelPad, and Y Combinator—archetypes of the venture incubator wave (or is it a bubble?) that we’ve been chronicling … Continue reading “PBS NewsHour Features Xconomy in Report on Startup Accelerators”
News Flash: Grass is Green, Sky is Blue, VCs are White Men
“Yeah, I love being famous. It’s almost like being white, y’know?”-Chris Rock On Monday, November 21, the National Venture Capital Association and Dow Jones VentureSource released the results of the 2011 Venture Census, which reported statistics about ethnicity, gender and other characteristics of the venture capital industry garnered from a poll that included 600 VC … Continue reading “News Flash: Grass is Green, Sky is Blue, VCs are White Men”
Allena Kicks Off With $15M, Security Firms Ink Funding, TeraDiode Takes In $10M, & More Boston-Area Deals News
New England startups working on drugs, security software, robots, laser weapons (seriously), and mobile fitness applications have reported a bundle of deals this week heading into Thanksgiving. —Newton, MA-based Allena Pharmaceuticals, a new startup targeting protein therapeutics, premiered with a $15 million Series A financing. The funding came from Third Rock Ventures, Frazier Healthcare, and … Continue reading “Allena Kicks Off With $15M, Security Firms Ink Funding, TeraDiode Takes In $10M, & More Boston-Area Deals News”
For A Boost Building Mobile Apps, Web Developers Step On the Appcelerator
Apple’s iPhone and iPad may be the hottest, most stylish gadgets out there—in fact, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has already enshrined the iPad 2 in an exhibit on industrial design. But inside, iOS devices use a programming language that’s truly antiquated. It’s called Objective-C, and it rose to prominence in the late … Continue reading “For A Boost Building Mobile Apps, Web Developers Step On the Appcelerator”
Pfizer Acquires Excaliard, an Isis Spinout With Drug to Fight Excessive Scarring
Pfizer is making a new bet on a new drug to fight excessive scarring, by acquiring a former skunkworks project from Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ISIS]]). New York-based Pfizer (NYSE: [[ticker:PFE]]) said today it has reached an agreement to acquire Carlsbad, CA-based Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, a spinoff from Isis. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but … Continue reading “Pfizer Acquires Excaliard, an Isis Spinout With Drug to Fight Excessive Scarring”
Jury Convicts Financial Advisor in Murder of Life Sciences Investor
Here at Xconomy, it’s unusual for us to shift far from our focus on the business of innovation—especially to cover something off the local police blotter. But the 2010 murder of retired biotech CEO and angel investor John G. Watson hit close to home for San Diego’s innovation community, especially among local life sciences investors … Continue reading “Jury Convicts Financial Advisor in Murder of Life Sciences Investor”
Cloud Vets Start PaperShare, Giving IT Pros a Better Place to Geek Out
What do you do with stuff that’s just too nerdy to discuss on Facebook? For some technical professionals, the answer still lies in sites that are very Web 1.0—long lists of links, few sharing functions, very basic design. Doug Brown knows this well. Since 1999 he’s been running the site DABCC, which focuses on a … Continue reading “Cloud Vets Start PaperShare, Giving IT Pros a Better Place to Geek Out”
Prospect Venture Partners’ Alex Barkas Dies Suddenly
Xconomy is sad to report that Alex Barkas, a prominent biotech venture capitalist with Prospect Venture Partners, died suddenly on Monday. He was 64. The cause of death hasn’t been determined, but it was sudden and unexpected, said David Schnell, a longtime colleague and fellow managing director at Prospect. “Alex was genuinely a wonderful person, … Continue reading “Prospect Venture Partners’ Alex Barkas Dies Suddenly”
7 Questions LPs Should Ask VCs (But Don’t)
It’s that time of year: annual investor meetings for limited partners (LPs). LPs are the people who fund venture firms and the general partners (GPs) are the people who lead them. At these meetings, LPs pour over general partners’ (GPs’) reports, calculate TVPI (total value: paid in)/ IRR (internal rate of return), digest confidential past … Continue reading “7 Questions LPs Should Ask VCs (But Don’t)”
Xconomist of the Week: Larry Smarr’s Quest for ‘Quantified Health’
A couple of months ago, the publisher and CEO of the weekly Strategic News Service Newsletter introduced an article by San Diego Xconomist Larry Smarr, saying, “This issue may be the most important Special Letter we have ever published.” Smarr’s 23-page article, which takes up the newsletter’s entire Sept. 26 issue, is part scientific paper … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Larry Smarr’s Quest for ‘Quantified Health’”
Join Us at Noon ET/9 am PT for a Tweetchat on the Biotech VC Crisis With Daphne Zohar
Just a quick reminder here to join us for the Tweetchat today with Daphne Zohar of PureTech Ventures. This chat, on the crisis in biotech venture capital, will be on Twitter today at Noon Eastern/9 am Pacific. I will be asking questions from @ldtimmerman and @xconomy while Zohar will be answering from her account (@daphnezohar).You … Continue reading “Join Us at Noon ET/9 am PT for a Tweetchat on the Biotech VC Crisis With Daphne Zohar”
Avalara Rockets Ahead with Sales Tax Software while Amazon, Big Retailers Battle
After a year of epic battles with politicians and brick-and-mortar competitors, Amazon.com has made sales-tax policy a relatively sexy topic in the business world. But another Seattle-area technology company has been working for years to navigate complex sales tax systems—and it’s growing like a weed. That company is Avalara. Started by an accountant/developer and based … Continue reading “Avalara Rockets Ahead with Sales Tax Software while Amazon, Big Retailers Battle”
Waggit Takes Startup Weekend NYC
The New York startup scene is literally going to the dogs. Waggit, a platform for finding potential dog sitters among other local pet lovers, on Sunday won the grand prize at Startup Weekend New York City. Like many other Startup Weekend events, the hackathon started off with a massive collision of ideas—some more original than … Continue reading “Waggit Takes Startup Weekend NYC”
Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter on Tackling the Pharmaceutical R&D Crisis (Part 2)
Yesterday, we ran the first installment of an interview with Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter, in which he says the pharmaceutical industry is breaking out of its current rut, and is beginning to get more productive at pumping out more innovative new drugs. Today, we follow up with the second half of the interview, which … Continue reading “Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter on Tackling the Pharmaceutical R&D Crisis (Part 2)”
Navy Draws Heavy Media Coverage for Biggest Biofuel Sea Trial
It seems doubtful that the U.S. Navy has ever gotten as much media attention for offshore cruising between San Diego and Port Hueneme as the decommissioned destroyer Paul H. Foster received last week. The Spruance-class destroyer, which has been refitted to serve in various ways as an ocean-going test platform, arrived at the naval base … Continue reading “Navy Draws Heavy Media Coverage for Biggest Biofuel Sea Trial”
ArdentCause: Women on the Verge
One day, Rosemary Bayer came to her friend Kathleen Norton-Schock with an idea sparked by her experience as a volunteer for the Michigan Council of Women in Technology (MCWT): How could a nonprofit better manage volunteers and resources while improving communication with grantees? Though they didn’t realize it at that moment, Bayer’s idea became the … Continue reading “ArdentCause: Women on the Verge”
Box Reaches Out to Developers in a Bid to Promote Its Cloud File Sharing Service
Box, the Palo Alto file-sharing startup that recently snagged another $81 million in venture funding, has started to throw around the “E” word: ecosystem. At a media event in San Francisco last Thursday night, the company announced the formation of a community program called the Box Innovation Network—abbreviated /bin, a clever reference to a common … Continue reading “Box Reaches Out to Developers in a Bid to Promote Its Cloud File Sharing Service”
Hunch, Backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Acquired by EBay
New York’s Hunch, which uses its technology to provide data insights on what consumers want, said on its blog Monday that it was acquired by online auction heavyweight eBay (Nasdaq: [[ticker:EBAY]]) in San Jose, CA. Financial terms were not disclosed by the companies. However, reports valued the deal at $80 million. EBay says it plans to … Continue reading “Hunch, Backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Acquired by EBay”
Six Cities, Six Big Tech Ideas on Dec. 1: Here’s the Agenda
This is life’s big question: what should you spend your time on? If you’re starting a company, you probably want to do something fun that lets you be your own boss and maybe, just maybe, gives you a good shot to strike it rich. If you’re an investor, you want to make money and be … Continue reading “Six Cities, Six Big Tech Ideas on Dec. 1: Here’s the Agenda”
Yelp, Intermolecular, Hotel Tonight: Bay Area BizTech News by the Numbers
It’s roundup time. From biggest to smallest, here are the major deals and developments around the Bay Area since our last roundup on November 17. $100 million—The amount San Francisco-based Yelp hopes to raise in its initial public offering, according to an S-1 filing made public last Thursday. The local business search site has raised … Continue reading “Yelp, Intermolecular, Hotel Tonight: Bay Area BizTech News by the Numbers”
New York Startups Shapeways, Chloe + Isabel, and HowAboutWe.com Rake in Cash
An array of New York startups, including a 3D manufacturer and a dating website, has raised funding recently: Shapeways, a 3D printing company says in a blog post it raised $5.1 million in a funding round with prior investors Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures. The company’s 3D printing services let customers create products from … Continue reading “New York Startups Shapeways, Chloe + Isabel, and HowAboutWe.com Rake in Cash”
DriveCam Raises $85M, SwoopThat Wins PitchFest, & More San Diego BizTech News
Last week was the storm before the calm, as a warm front of high-tech news moved through the San Diego region before the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ve got the details here. —San Diego-based DriveCam said it raised $85 million through a private placement that will be used mostly for its acquisition of RAIR Technologies. As I … Continue reading “DriveCam Raises $85M, SwoopThat Wins PitchFest, & More San Diego BizTech News”