There’s something about Estonia. Maybe it’s the Skype phenomenon—the Estonian-born company (now part of Microsoft) certainly helped create a strong culture of engineering there. But the Baltic nation of 1.4 million seems to have a greater concentration of engineers and technical talent than almost anyplace else. That’s probably an exaggeration, but at least one recent … Continue reading “From Estonia to Boston: GrabCAD Looks to Play Big Role in New England’s Tech Future”
Category: National
SaaS Deals Get Top Valuations, Del Mar DataTrac Sold, Qualcomm Introducing a Pet Tracker, & More San Diego BizTech News
The climate for software deal-making improved during the second quarter, especially for cloud-based companies offering Software-as-a-Service. We’ve got the rundown on that, as well as a new software deal to be counted in the next quarter. —San Diego’s Software Equity Group counted 397 buyouts and mergers in the software sector with a cumulative value of … Continue reading “SaaS Deals Get Top Valuations, Del Mar DataTrac Sold, Qualcomm Introducing a Pet Tracker, & More San Diego BizTech News”
Laser Maker nLight Adds $17.5M, Mulls IPO
Semiconductor laser manufacturer nLight Corp. is heading toward a possible public stock offering after completing a $17.5 million round of venture financing from existing investors. In an interview with VentureWire, chief financial officer Dave Schaezler said nLight is “at a size where it makes sense to plan for an IPO,” although the Vancouver, WA-based company doesn’t … Continue reading “Laser Maker nLight Adds $17.5M, Mulls IPO”
Hipmunk on the Make: The First-Birthday Interview
I first covered Hipmunk on August 18, 2010, the day after the online travel startup debuted its innovative time-based flight search interface. One year later, how’s the Y Combinator-backed company faring? Spectacularly well, actually. In an announcement marking its first birthday last week, the startup said that users are conducting a million combined flight and … Continue reading “Hipmunk on the Make: The First-Birthday Interview”
MI’s Growing Wind Industry Lobbies for Continuation of Tax Credit
Last week, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI15) paid a visit to the Canton, MI-based Danotek Motion Technologies, a startup company developing products for the wind, microgrid, and transportation sectors. Dingell was there to announce his support for extending the Production Tax Credit, a federal income-tax credit that supports the production of electricity from utility-scale wind turbines … Continue reading “MI’s Growing Wind Industry Lobbies for Continuation of Tax Credit”
Growing Need for “Big Data” Analysis Spurs Growth in Today’s SD Conference
More than 1,100 experts who analyze “Big Data” are gathered in San Diego today for the industry’s major conference on “Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining” (KDD). The registered attendance is a 22 percent increase over the 900 who attended last year’s KDD conference in Washington D.C. “In this field, at least, we’re experiencing a recovery,” … Continue reading “Growing Need for “Big Data” Analysis Spurs Growth in Today’s SD Conference”
Video: Seattle Genetics CEO Makes the Case for a $100K Cancer Drug
Seattle Genetics is making news all over the Web today, in the first full business day since it won FDA approval for its new targeted antibody drug for rare lymphomas. While the drug won FDA approval a little bit earlier than expected, the company kept everyone in suspense until today on one critical fact—how much … Continue reading “Video: Seattle Genetics CEO Makes the Case for a $100K Cancer Drug”
San Diego’s Tandem Diabetes Raises $12 Million While Insulin Pump Is Under Review
Tandem Diabetes Care, a San Diego medical device maker founded in 2008, has raised $12 million of a financing round that could eventually total nearly $13.7 million, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company has applied to the FDA for clearance for its insulin pump, according to VentureWire. The company’s website says its wearable … Continue reading “San Diego’s Tandem Diabetes Raises $12 Million While Insulin Pump Is Under Review”
Seattle Genetics Sets Lymphoma Drug Price at $13,500 Per Dose
Seattle Genetics is now in position to start selling its first new drug, and it won’t be cheap. The Bothell, WA-based biotech company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SGEN]]), fresh off its FDA approval of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) on Friday, said it will charge $13,500 per dose for the new drug for Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a related disease, anaplastic … Continue reading “Seattle Genetics Sets Lymphoma Drug Price at $13,500 Per Dose”
MIT’s t=0 Festival to Include Hackathon, Startup Demos, Entrepreneur Speakers-Even a Bouncy House
MIT is looking to throw a party this September, but it’s not just all fun and games (more on that later). The innovation community has already been buzzing a bit about this one, called t=0. The idea for the festival is “to encourage students to start something that is big and world changing,” says Dharmishta … Continue reading “MIT’s t=0 Festival to Include Hackathon, Startup Demos, Entrepreneur Speakers-Even a Bouncy House”
Google, Motorola, SecondMarket: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News
While Wall Street burned last week, Silicon Valley fiddled. There was Web-wide discussion of the meaning of the week’s blockbuster technology news, Google’s announcement that it will acquire Motorola Mobility—including right here at Xconomy. —While many pundits focused on the 17,000-plus patents that Google will acquire if the Motorola deal goes through, our take was … Continue reading “Google, Motorola, SecondMarket: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area Biztech News”
Roadify Clears Up Confusion on the Streets and Rails
Every commuter wants to find better ways to traverse busy cities. Subway delays and bus route changes may throw carefully timed travel plans into disarray. To ease such headaches, New York startup Roadify has developed a mobile app that delivers updates from transit agencies and input from users on the street. The app has already … Continue reading “Roadify Clears Up Confusion on the Streets and Rails”
Medify, Stocked with Farecast Vets, Digs Deep into Online Health Data
Saving money on a flight to visit your sick grandma is pretty easy these days. Finding out whether her doctor is using the latest treatment is another thing entirely. And piercing that veil in the healthcare delivery system is exactly what Seattle startup Medify is trying to do. The airfare comparison is no accident, by … Continue reading “Medify, Stocked with Farecast Vets, Digs Deep into Online Health Data”
Seattle Genetics: The Next Litmus Test for High Priced Cancer Drugs
[Update: 9:20 am ET] Dendreon ran into a buzz saw of opposition last year when it priced its new prostate cancer drug at $93,000 per patient. Genentech has loads of critics who say it has overreached on price with its antibody drugs for cancer, especially in cases where the data supporting the drug is controversial, … Continue reading “Seattle Genetics: The Next Litmus Test for High Priced Cancer Drugs”
Hopper, With $8M in New VC Bucks, Looks to Leapfrog Online Travel Search Via Big Data
In Baltimore, a “hopper” is a young, street-level drug dealer (as devotees of The Wire can tell you). In Montreal, Hopper is a young travel search company. In Boston, well, we’ll see what happens in Boston. Hopper is announcing today an $8 million financing round led by Atlas Venture, with previous investor Brightspark Ventures also … Continue reading “Hopper, With $8M in New VC Bucks, Looks to Leapfrog Online Travel Search Via Big Data”
Seattle Genetics Wins FDA Approval of First Drug, a New Treatment for Lymphomas
Seattle Genetics’ big day has arrived, as it has won FDA clearance to start selling its first new drug on the U.S. market after 14 years in business. The company has received FDA clearance to start marketing brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) as a new treatment for U.S. patients with a pair of rare lymphomas—Hodgkin’s disease and … Continue reading “Seattle Genetics Wins FDA Approval of First Drug, a New Treatment for Lymphomas”
Why All the Churn Around Clearwire? It’s All About the Spectrum
It’s been quite a month so far for Kirkland, WA’s Clearwire (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CLWR]]), and that would be true even if the markets weren’t riding out an anxiety-fueled funnel cloud that has hammered plenty of technology stocks. Then again, turbulence is nothing new to Clearwire overall—the company has been plowing ahead with a huge makeover in … Continue reading “Why All the Churn Around Clearwire? It’s All About the Spectrum”
And Then There Were Three: Why Microsoft Is the Vital New Underdog in Mobile Computing
Hewlett-Packard’s surprise exit from the smartphone and tablet business yesterday means that WebOS is effectively dead. That brings Palm’s long legacy to an end and leaves just four major mobile operating systems standing: Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, and Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7. (Symbian would have been on this list until recently, but now that Nokia … Continue reading “And Then There Were Three: Why Microsoft Is the Vital New Underdog in Mobile Computing”
Exclusive: Pathway Medical Technologies To Be Acquired by Bayer’s Medrad Unit for $125M
[Update:8:25 am PT] Pathway Medical Technologies, the Kirkland, WA-based maker of a device that clears out blood vessel blockages in the legs, has agreed to be acquired for $125 million by Medrad, a Warrendale, PA-based medical device unit of Bayer Healthcare, Xconomy has learned. The acquisition hasn’t yet been announced by either company, and the … Continue reading “Exclusive: Pathway Medical Technologies To Be Acquired by Bayer’s Medrad Unit for $125M”
Software Industry Valuations Rise, Driven by Demand for Software-as-a-Service
Global spending on information and communications technologies is fueling higher valuations for public software companies, according to a quarterly report released by the San Diego-based Software Equity Group. Much of that increased spending, however, reflects an intensifying demand for cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS), as big-company CIOs increasingly accept the notion of … Continue reading “Software Industry Valuations Rise, Driven by Demand for Software-as-a-Service”
Pulmatrix Snags $14M, Embera Adds for $4.5 Addiction Drugs, Daktari Gets $1.2M, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News
This week was dominated by financing news from younger, privately held New England drug developers and diagnostics and devices firms. —Waltham, MA-based Proteon Therapeutics inked a $15.2 million equity- and options-based investment. The firm is developing drugs for kidney and vascular diseases. —Fluidnet, an Amesbury, MA-based developer of electronic infusion pumps for administering IV fluids, … Continue reading “Pulmatrix Snags $14M, Embera Adds for $4.5 Addiction Drugs, Daktari Gets $1.2M, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”
HubSpot Absorbs Oneforty in Latest Boston Area Social Marketing Acquisition
Leave it to two of the most talked-about social media and marketing companies in town to orchestrate this bit of news to maximum effect. HubSpot is announcing this afternoon that it has acquired Oneforty, in a press release that is written in easy-to-tweet form. What is not easy to gauge is the size of the … Continue reading “HubSpot Absorbs Oneforty in Latest Boston Area Social Marketing Acquisition”
SecondMarket Attempts to Sell Startups on the Value of Letting Employees Trade Their Stock
Startups usually relish disruption. For a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, there’s no brighter badge of honor than being able to say that your company reinvented a product category, sweeping away older competitors’ business models in the process. But these days, many of the disruptors are being disrupted, as the traditional system of incentive-based stock options for … Continue reading “SecondMarket Attempts to Sell Startups on the Value of Letting Employees Trade Their Stock”
Qualcomm, Apple, & Nokia Reportedly Still Considering InterDigital Buyout
Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]), Apple, (NASDAQ: [[ticker:APPL]]) and Nokia (NYSE: [[ticker:NOK]]) are deciding if buying wireless technologies specialist InterDigital (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IDCC]]) makes sense, according to a report in Reuters. InterDigital, based in King of Prussia, PA, generates most of its revenue from its portfolio of nearly 9,000 wireless technology patents. The company, which opened a new … Continue reading “Qualcomm, Apple, & Nokia Reportedly Still Considering InterDigital Buyout”
Funding for Diagnostics, Crowdsourced Problem Solving, & Medicine Counterfeiting Prevention
We spotted a few investments in New England startups working on a mix of technology in life sciences and collaboration. Take a look. —Cambridge, MA-based Daktari Diagnostics, a maker of an HIV diagnostics system for use in developing countries, took in $1.17 million of a targeted $1.25 million debt round of funding, according to an … Continue reading “Funding for Diagnostics, Crowdsourced Problem Solving, & Medicine Counterfeiting Prevention”
Consortium Find New HIV Antibodies, Zogenix Gets Drug to Clinical End Point, TrovaGene Reclaims Technology, & More San Diego Life Sciences News
Our roundup of San Diego’s life sciences news is short and sweet this morning. Could these be the dog days of summer? —Scientists from Seattle’s Theraclone Sciences, San Diego’s Scripps Research Institute, South San Francisco’s Monogram Biosciences, and the New York-based International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) have identified 17 new human antibodies that target a … Continue reading “Consortium Find New HIV Antibodies, Zogenix Gets Drug to Clinical End Point, TrovaGene Reclaims Technology, & More San Diego Life Sciences News”
Point Inside’s GPS for Shoppers Grows Revenue, Looks for More Investment
Josh Marti’s wife is one organized lady. When she sends him a text message with the night’s grocery shopping, it’s arranged like a roadmap to the whole store, with items listed in the order they’re found in the aisles for maximum turn-by-turn efficiency. With four daughters at home, that list is one heck of a … Continue reading “Point Inside’s GPS for Shoppers Grows Revenue, Looks for More Investment”
Tutorspree Preps for Back-to-School Market
With summer ending, classrooms will soon fill with students who may need some help tackling tough academic subjects. Searching for tutors can be a haphazard process of scouring classified ads. New York startup Tutorspree offers a more streamlined platform for students to find potential tutors local to them. One-year-old Tutorspree is an online service that … Continue reading “Tutorspree Preps for Back-to-School Market”
Xconomist of the Week: Tony Coles’ Journey from Mass General Doctor to SF Biotech CEO
Tony Coles was about nine years old when he decided to become a doctor. His father, a government accountant and a minister, told him that medicine and law were great professions. The younger Coles, a fan of math and science, opted for medicine. And even when teachers underestimated him, placing Coles in a math class … Continue reading “Xconomist of the Week: Tony Coles’ Journey from Mass General Doctor to SF Biotech CEO”
Are Free Motorola Phones in Our Future? A VC’s Take on Why Google is Buying Motorola
I was invited to go on Bloomberg West TV on Monday when news broke of Google’s plan to acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion in cash. I hadn’t had much time to digest the news before going on live television and found myself verbalizing my gut instinct: that is, I think Google will at some point … Continue reading “Are Free Motorola Phones in Our Future? A VC’s Take on Why Google is Buying Motorola”
Hydroelectricity Without Turbines or Dams? Vortex Hydro Energy Says It’s All About the VIV
What if you could generate hydroelectric power without turbines, propellers or dams—but by simply harnessing the current from the water the generator is placed in? According to Ann Arbor, MI-based startup Vortex Hydro Energy, thanks to a product developed by University of Michigan professor Michael Bernitsas, you can. Last decade, Bernitsas was attempting to build … Continue reading “Hydroelectricity Without Turbines or Dams? Vortex Hydro Energy Says It’s All About the VIV”
The Future of Life Sciences in New York: Xconomy to Convene its First Big NYC Event Oct. 13
I had only been at Xconomy a couple of weeks when I realized how hot the topic of biotech’s future in New York truly is. It was April, and I was one of the members of the press at the New York Biotechnology Association’s 20th annual meeting. The first panel I attended had a provocative … Continue reading “The Future of Life Sciences in New York: Xconomy to Convene its First Big NYC Event Oct. 13”
San Diego’s Stock Twits Aims its Social Media Tweets at the Wall Street People Who Matter
After more than 20 years of experience as a Wall Street investor and entrepreneur, Howard Lindzon has become a connoisseur of stock culture. He says his disdain for CNBC was the reason he created WallStrip, an offbeat videoblog mix of finance, markets, and humor, in 2007. Eight months later, CBS acquired WallStrip for an undisclosed … Continue reading “San Diego’s Stock Twits Aims its Social Media Tweets at the Wall Street People Who Matter”
Scientists Spot New Antibodies Against HIV, Opening Up Potential Path to AIDS Vaccine
Scientists have never been able to make an effective AIDS vaccine, largely because the HIV virus is crafty, always finding ways to mutate and escape the body’s immune defenses. But now a national team of scientists has found antibodies that zero in on newly identified weak spots in the virus, potentially opening up promising new … Continue reading “Scientists Spot New Antibodies Against HIV, Opening Up Potential Path to AIDS Vaccine”
BuyWithMe CEO Jim Crowley Talks Strategy in Mobile, Payments, and Loyalty 2.0
There may be no such thing as loyalty anymore. But there is something called Loyalty 2.0—this is a new wave of companies helping stores and restaurants offer things like digital coupons, deals, and rewards to repeat customers. And a lot of Boston and New York startups are getting in on the trend. One of them … Continue reading “BuyWithMe CEO Jim Crowley Talks Strategy in Mobile, Payments, and Loyalty 2.0”
Delcath Takes FDA Hassle in Stride, Prepares to Sell New Chemo Device Overseas
On July 20, Delcath Systems (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DCTH]]) raised $23.5 million in a secondary offering, pricing its stock at $5.05—a significant discount to the $11 price tag the medical device company’s shares had sported six months earlier. But in a meeting with Xconomy at Delcath’s midtown Manhattan headquarters a few weeks later, Delcath CEO Eamonn Hobbs … Continue reading “Delcath Takes FDA Hassle in Stride, Prepares to Sell New Chemo Device Overseas”
Tech Startup Investing, Following the Seasonal Pattern, Falls to $250M in July
Startups in the Bay State have taken a bit of a break from the feverish pace they were inking deals at earlier this summer. Last month, 34 startups pulled in $250.5 million in equity-based deals, down from the whopping $564.7 million they raised across 38 financings in June, according to data from Funding Flash, a … Continue reading “Tech Startup Investing, Following the Seasonal Pattern, Falls to $250M in July”
Finding Trends: Cleantech IPOs Skew Toward Biofuels, Materials, Energy Efficiency
Even before global markets reacted to the U.S. credit downgrade, IPOs for cleantech companies have been relatively few and far between. Still, the IPO data for the first half of 2011 reveals the kinds of alternative energy and green technology companies are going public—a good indication of which sectors are more likely to attract more … Continue reading “Finding Trends: Cleantech IPOs Skew Toward Biofuels, Materials, Energy Efficiency”
Carbonite Goes Public At $10 a Share, PeerTransfer Pulls In $7.5M, BuyWithMe Picks Up Scoop St., & More Boston-Area Deals News
This week’s New England deals list includes a mix of life sciences and IT companies. —Lexington, MA-based T2 Biosystems, a developer of a system for identifying biological substances such as proteins, small molecules, viruses, and DNA more cheaply and quickly than existing methods, took in $23 million in Series D financing. New T2 investor Aisling … Continue reading “Carbonite Goes Public At $10 a Share, PeerTransfer Pulls In $7.5M, BuyWithMe Picks Up Scoop St., & More Boston-Area Deals News”
CeeTox Wins $25.9M Contract From EPA
Kalamazoo, MI-based life sciences company CeeTox announced today that it has been awarded a $25.9 million contract under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ToxCast program to develop alternatives to animal testing for the toxicity of chemicals used in drugs, cosmetics, and personal care products. Rather than testing animals, CeeTox will test products on cells in … Continue reading “CeeTox Wins $25.9M Contract From EPA”
Zulily, OpsCode, Clearwire: Your 1-Minute Weekly Roundup of Seattle Tech Headlines
One of Seattle’s hotter tech startups, Zulily, has been operating fairly under the radar in recent months, even as competitors in the daily deals/private sales sector court tons of publicity. That modesty ebbed a bit last week, when Zulily announced that it had raised $43 million in venture financing to help fuel its growth in … Continue reading “Zulily, OpsCode, Clearwire: Your 1-Minute Weekly Roundup of Seattle Tech Headlines”
Ahead of Schedule, UM Venture Accelerator Brings in Three New Startups
The University of Michigan’s Venture Accelerator, a startup incubator launched in January, announced last week that it’s now home to three new companies. This boosts the accelerator’s total number of startups to eight, which makes the incubator six to twelve months ahead of schedule for filling the space, according to Jim O’Connell, the director of … Continue reading “Ahead of Schedule, UM Venture Accelerator Brings in Three New Startups”
Computing in the Age of the $1000 Genome: Xconomy to Convene Next Big SF Event Oct. 24
An amazing innovation story has been unfolding the past few years in the field of gene sequencing, which is creating one of today’s biggest computing challenges. New DNA sequencing tools are improving at such a rapid pace that scientists say it will soon be possible to generate the 3-billion-letter signature of an individual’s DNA for … Continue reading “Computing in the Age of the $1000 Genome: Xconomy to Convene Next Big SF Event Oct. 24”
Nebula, Incubators, Bubbles: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News
The Google-Motorola bombshell on Monday shifted the timeline, pushing our roundup of last week’s news to today (Tuesday). —I profiled Nebula, a Palo Alto startup adapting open-source cloud computing technology from NASA to build an enterprise cloud appliance—a device that helps companies with large data centers set up private clouds similar to Amazon’s Elastic Compute … Continue reading “Nebula, Incubators, Bubbles: The 1-Minute Version of Last Week’s Bay Area BizTech News”
AccuVein Wows Investors With Device That Prevents Extra Needle Sticks
Virtually everyone who’s ever had a blood test has experienced this nightmare at least once: Prick, no vein, prick, still no vein, prick … those are all the extra needle sticks that happen when a nurse or other medical professional can’t find a vein to draw blood or insert an IV. The desire to prevent … Continue reading “AccuVein Wows Investors With Device That Prevents Extra Needle Sticks”
Get Big, Get Small, Get Lucky: Why EVO Media Was Ready When Opportunity Came Calling
When the customer that would transform their business came calling, the entrepreneurs behind Seattle’s EVO Media Group weren’t exactly flying high. After a $1.5 million fundraising round and a period of rapid hiring, the three-year-old startup was confronting an intractably slow economy and a target market that wasn’t generating enough sales. EVO was forced to … Continue reading “Get Big, Get Small, Get Lucky: Why EVO Media Was Ready When Opportunity Came Calling”
Innovate or Conserve Cash? The Growing Dilemma for Biotech Firms
There’s no doubt that managing a biotech company is an enduring challenge, even during less tumultuous economic times. Now, entrepreneurs are contending with resources that are incredibly tight, an economy that is unsettled, a stock market on a roller-coaster ride, and research and development budgets that are being slashed. The stewardship role entrusted to the … Continue reading “Innovate or Conserve Cash? The Growing Dilemma for Biotech Firms”
MobiFlex, With Rebranding, Tries to Change How Businesses Make Mobile Apps (No Coding)
You can tell a sub-industry has really taken off when you see startups appearing out of nowhere to go after it. I’m talking about mobile apps for businesses. And Wellesley, MA-based MobiFlex, while not quite coming out of nowhere, has emerged on the scene with an interesting approach. The startup, not quite a year old, … Continue reading “MobiFlex, With Rebranding, Tries to Change How Businesses Make Mobile Apps (No Coding)”
Pleasanton’s Ellie Mae Buys San Diego’s Del Mar DataTrac for $25.2M
Pleasanton, CA-based Ellie Mae (NYSE Amex: [[ticker:ELLI]]), which provides software used by mortgage lenders to underwrite home loans and related transactions, says today it has acquired Del Mar DataTrac, a privately held competitor in San Diego. In a statement, Ellie Mae says it agreed to pay $17.2 million at closing, with another $8 million in … Continue reading “Pleasanton’s Ellie Mae Buys San Diego’s Del Mar DataTrac for $25.2M”
PeerTransfer Nabs $7.5M for Tuition Payment Processing Tech
Boston-based PeerTransfer, a developer of technology for more cheaply and efficiently processing college tuition payments from international students, has inked a deal itself. The startup announced today that it has completed a $7.5 million Series A financing, led by Spark Capital, and which included Accel Partners, Maveron, and Boston Seed Capital. The new cash will … Continue reading “PeerTransfer Nabs $7.5M for Tuition Payment Processing Tech”