Ambiq Micro, an Ann Arbor, MI, startup developing low-power microcontrollers for smart credit cards and ultralong-life sensors for homes and buildings, has attracted $2.4 million in seed funding, the company announced yesterday. The money comes from lead investor DFJ Mercury, along with ARM, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Cisco, The Frankel Fund, Huron River Ventures, and a … Continue reading “Ambiq Micro Gets $2.4M to Develop Ubiquitous Microcontrollers for Smart Credit Cards, Homes”
Category: National
Dana-Farber and Bay-Area Startup File Responses in Lawsuit Over Rights to Cancer Molecule
There’s a new round of interesting court filings in Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s lawsuit against a Bay Area biotech startup co-founded by Dana-Farber scientists. It’s the latest chapter in a case primarily concerning who has rights to a potential game-changing drug for lung cancer discovered at Dana-Farber. Dana-Farber filed a lawsuit against Millbrae, CA-based Gatekeeper … Continue reading “Dana-Farber and Bay-Area Startup File Responses in Lawsuit Over Rights to Cancer Molecule”
U-M Leaders Say Snyder Pick Good News for Startup Community, But Worry He’ll Be Held Up by Bureaucracy
Last week, Michigan voters elected political outsider Rick Snyder, whose resume more closely resembles that of a technology entrepreneur than a career politician, as the state’s next governor. Before stepping into the political arena, Snyder served as president of computer giant Gateway, co-founded a venture capital firm called Avalon Investments, and was chairman of Ann … Continue reading “U-M Leaders Say Snyder Pick Good News for Startup Community, But Worry He’ll Be Held Up by Bureaucracy”
Video-Chatting With Random, But Similar Strangers Goes Live with VisitorsCafe Launch
Traditionally, website features like comments sections can give a small peek at the people congregating to read the content there. But now, rather than just reading those comments, you can engage in a direct video chat with the people behind them, thanks to technology being released today by Boston-based VisitorsCafe. “People kept telling me, ‘Hey … Continue reading “Video-Chatting With Random, But Similar Strangers Goes Live with VisitorsCafe Launch”
Big Data, Big Problems
In the global marketplace, businesses and employees are creating and consuming more information than ever before. Gartner predicts that enterprise data in all forms will grow 650 percent over the next five years, while IDC claims the entire world’s data doubles every 18 months. According to “The Business Impact of Big Data,” a new global … Continue reading “Big Data, Big Problems”
E Ink Gets Colorful, Akamai Loses Netflix, Five Startups Are Hiring, and More Tech Tidbits
This is one of those weeks when it feels like we’ve been overrun by news. Nothing really major, but a lot of things to think about. To get caught up, here’s a sampling of what’s been going on in the Boston tech community today: —E Ink, the technology maker behind many popular e-reader displays, said … Continue reading “E Ink Gets Colorful, Akamai Loses Netflix, Five Startups Are Hiring, and More Tech Tidbits”
Borrowing a Page from Facebook and Ning, BroadVision Bets the Company on the “Social Business Cloud”
Pehong Chen says he got the idea for the future of BroadVision from his kids. It was certainly clear, by 2007 or so, that BroadVision needed a new business. Founded in 1993, the Redwood City, CA-based software vendor built e-commerce applications and corporate portals during the first Internet boom. Chen, the founding CEO, took the … Continue reading “Borrowing a Page from Facebook and Ning, BroadVision Bets the Company on the “Social Business Cloud””
Who Will Keep the Flame Alive for Seattle Biotech? Hear From the Players Nov. 29
Seattle’s life sciences industry has been on life support for a few years, but now, for the first time in a long time, biotech has started to show some legit signs of rebirth. Will the Northwest seize this moment, and become a stronger and more vibrant place for companies that dare to develop new drugs, … Continue reading “Who Will Keep the Flame Alive for Seattle Biotech? Hear From the Players Nov. 29”
Q&A With Doug Williams: Reflecting on ZymoGenetics, Looking Ahead at Seattle Biotech
Yesterday, we broke the news here at Xconomy that ZymoGenetics CEO Doug Williams has left the company now that it has been taken over by Bristol-Myers Squibb. He is now officially scoping out his next gig. This is news, because he’s one of the few people that national life sciences VCs would back in a … Continue reading “Q&A With Doug Williams: Reflecting on ZymoGenetics, Looking Ahead at Seattle Biotech”
Big Fish Help Out the Smaller Fish in the Life Sciences Pond
In spite of the abundance of PhDs, MDs, JDs, and MBAs in biotech and pharma, we all know that on-the-job learning is really how this industry is built. Nobody goes to university to learn how to be a great CEO or manager, and there aren’t any courses in grad school where budding researchers can learn … Continue reading “Big Fish Help Out the Smaller Fish in the Life Sciences Pond”
Arena Reloads for Round 2 with FDA, With More Data on Weight Loss Drug in Diabetes Patients
Arena Pharmaceuticals is getting ready to make another run for U.S. regulatory approval of its obesity drug, and now it has some clinical trial data that the FDA has said it wants to see. The San Diego-based biotech company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARNA]]) is announcing today that its experimental weight loss treatment, lorcaserin (Lorqess), reached all three … Continue reading “Arena Reloads for Round 2 with FDA, With More Data on Weight Loss Drug in Diabetes Patients”
Don’t Just Read—Hear Personalized Social Networking Posts With Thing5’s Jawbite App
The “happy birthday” wall post on Facebook or mention on Twitter is about to get a whole lot more personal. Now, rather than just typing out a message or status on one of the social networking tools, you can attach a voicemail to it, thanks to a feature called JawBite, from Springfield, MA-based voice telecom … Continue reading “Don’t Just Read—Hear Personalized Social Networking Posts With Thing5’s Jawbite App”
Web Video Ad Startups ScanScout, Tremor Media Join Forces in Challenge to Hulu, YouTube
Boston-based ScanScout, which serves targeted video ads to a network of 1,000 online publishers, has been acquired by New York-based competitor Tremor Media, the two companies announced today. The combined company, which will be headed by ScanScout CEO Bill Day, hopes to form a video ad distribution network large enough to compete with Hulu, YouTube, Brightroll, … Continue reading “Web Video Ad Startups ScanScout, Tremor Media Join Forces in Challenge to Hulu, YouTube”
How the Smart Grid Opportunity Looks a Lot Like the Internet Once Did
The smart grid is a new technology arena that will change how Americans think about electricity. Entrepreneurs jumping into this sector give many reasons — to save the planet, save lives, or save the economy — but what attracts us most is the opportunity to leverage what we learned from the Internet revolution, to make … Continue reading “How the Smart Grid Opportunity Looks a Lot Like the Internet Once Did”
RockMelt Enters Browser Wars with Backing from Marc Andreessen, Focus on Facebook and Twitter
Change in the browser market, compared to newer areas like mobile apps, is truly glacial: the main trend over the past few years has been the gradual migration of Internet Explorer users (the Microsoft browser still has a 60 percent market share) to Mozilla’s Firefox (23 percent) and Google’s Chrome (9 percent). But if anyone … Continue reading “RockMelt Enters Browser Wars with Backing from Marc Andreessen, Focus on Facebook and Twitter”
Inventor and VC Bob Metcalfe Joins Faculty at University of Texas, Talks About Spurring Innovation by Teaching It
Big news in the New England innovation community today. Bob Metcalfe, an inventor of the Ethernet local-area networking standard, founder of 3Com, partner at Polaris Venture Partners—too many qualifications to list here—is joining the University of Texas at Austin as “professor of innovation” in UT’s engineering school as of January 2011. The news was first … Continue reading “Inventor and VC Bob Metcalfe Joins Faculty at University of Texas, Talks About Spurring Innovation by Teaching It”
Ambit Biosciences Seeks $86M IPO as Market Warms Up
Ambit Biosciences, the San Diego-based biotech company in its third incarnation, is now gearing up to take the IPO leap. Ambit is hoping to raise as much as $86.3 million in an initial public offering underwritten by JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Leerink Swann, and Wedbush PacGrow Life Sciences, according to an investor prospectus filed with … Continue reading “Ambit Biosciences Seeks $86M IPO as Market Warms Up”
EMC’s Acquisition Strategy: New Insights from Data Domain (and Rumored Isilon Deal)
EMC, the data storage giant, has lots of irons in the fire when it comes to innovation. The Hopkinton, MA-based firm (NYSE: [[ticker:EMC]]) pursues an interesting mix of acquisitions and “organic” in-house research and development. A few weeks ago, I spoke with EMC’s chief technology officer, Jeff Nick, about the company’s broader innovation strategy—which can … Continue reading “EMC’s Acquisition Strategy: New Insights from Data Domain (and Rumored Isilon Deal)”
Novatel Acquires M2M Technology Specialist
San Diego’s Novatel Wireless (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NVTL]]), which provides high-speed wireless mobile hotspot devices, USB modems, and other wireless Internet access products, says today it is buying Enfora, a suburban Dallas provider of asset management technology. Enfora says its intelligent asset-management systems use wireless technology and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to analyze information from distributed assets. Novatel, … Continue reading “Novatel Acquires M2M Technology Specialist”
Genomic Health Seeks to Build Momentum For Healthcare Shift from Rx to Dx
Genomic Health is one of the big success stories of the past decade in the diagnostics business, and an early leader in the movement toward more personalized medicine. The Redwood City, CA-based company generated $150 million in revenue last year, saw sales climb almost 20 percent in the second quarter, and has reached cash flow … Continue reading “Genomic Health Seeks to Build Momentum For Healthcare Shift from Rx to Dx”
Angel Investing Loses Altitude, Avalon’s Levandov Talks About His Digital Investments, TechAmerica AeA Investor Conference Opens Today, & More San Diego BizTech News
It was a relatively quiet week for BizTech news in San Diego. Get caught up on all you need to know here. —Executives from several San Diego semiconductor companies are scheduled to make investor presentations today at the TechAmerica AeA Financial Classic, which continues through tomorrow at the downtown Manchester Grand Hyatt. Local presenting companies … Continue reading “Angel Investing Loses Altitude, Avalon’s Levandov Talks About His Digital Investments, TechAmerica AeA Investor Conference Opens Today, & More San Diego BizTech News”
Diane Greene’s Advice to Female Entrepreneurs: You Too Could Start a VMware
[Corrected, see below] Female technologists and CEOs are still rare in Silicon Valley, but Diane Greene has been both—and she’s been far more successful at it than most males. Trained at MIT and UC Berkeley, Greene was the co-founder and founding CEO of Palo Alto, CA-based VMware, which introduced a layer of virtualization between hardware … Continue reading “Diane Greene’s Advice to Female Entrepreneurs: You Too Could Start a VMware”
ZymoGenetics CEO Doug Williams Exits the Stage, Mulls Next Free Agent Move
Doug Williams, one of the few nationally prominent biotechnology executives in Seattle, has officially left his job as ZymoGenetics CEO now that the company’s $885 million takeover by Bristol-Myers Squibb has been completed, Xconomy has learned. Both Williams and former ZymoGenetics president Stephen Zaruby have left the company after it was acquired last month by … Continue reading “ZymoGenetics CEO Doug Williams Exits the Stage, Mulls Next Free Agent Move”
Facebook Goes Deeper into Mobile, ShopWell Goes to Market, Cloudera Aims High, & More Bay Area BizTech News
We ran several terrific stories last week from Deborah Gage, a Bay Area technology journalist who filled in while I was on vacation in Alaska. (Thanks Deborah!) We also published an in-depth a look at Ideo nutrition-advice spinoff ShopWell. —Cloudera, a Palo Alto, CA-based startup offering tools and consulting services around the Hadoop open-source distributing … Continue reading “Facebook Goes Deeper into Mobile, ShopWell Goes to Market, Cloudera Aims High, & More Bay Area BizTech News”
Ann Arbor’s BodegaBid Bets There’s Real Profit in Virtual Currency
Mark Sendo of Ann Arbor, MI, is not into reality. Oh, the founder and CEO of BodegaBid says he briefly tried reality last spring, when his company partnered with a Seattle startup called Beer2Buds and let holders of virtual cash buy their friends a beer in the real world. But the three-year-old BodegaBid ended that … Continue reading “Ann Arbor’s BodegaBid Bets There’s Real Profit in Virtual Currency”
A New Playbook for Green Advertising
What does it mean for a product to be environmentally friendly? How about sustainable? Or even biodegradable? These words may appeal to a rapidly growing body of environmentally conscious customers, not to mention the major corporations and startups who appeal to them by touting their own “greenness”—but unless they convey a clear meaning and can … Continue reading “A New Playbook for Green Advertising”
ProctorCam’s Web Technology Out to Monitor Online Testing From Afar
Teachers have always tried to keep an eye out for cheating, and cheaters have always tried to conceal the tricks of the trade. But now surveillance is coming to higher education, from Boston-based startup ProctorCam, a maker of Web-based software for the live monitoring of test-takers remotely. The idea for the company came when founder … Continue reading “ProctorCam’s Web Technology Out to Monitor Online Testing From Afar”
Cap-and-Trade May Be Wounded, But The Low Carbon Economy is Still Healthy
Some 61 percent of California voters this week showed they still believe in the economic promise of clean energy. Californians rejected Proposition 23 that would have rolled back policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions and develop clean energy. Their vote of confidence reminds us that even though comprehensive federal climate legislation may be off the … Continue reading “Cap-and-Trade May Be Wounded, But The Low Carbon Economy is Still Healthy”
Super Angels Not So Super? Angel Investing Deals Up, But Dollars Down for 2010
For all the fuss about “super angels” and “angels are the new VCs,” a report out this week from the University of New Hampshire says angel investors are putting less money into companies overall, especially at the seed and startup stages, compared with previous years. Of course, there are many factors at play here. The … Continue reading “Super Angels Not So Super? Angel Investing Deals Up, But Dollars Down for 2010”
Steve Davis, the Techie Turned Global Healthie, Gets Dose of Reality at Close Range in India
Nobody can accuse Steve Davis of being a dilettante on global health. He’s best known for his strategic business thinking as the former CEO of Corbis, the digital image heavyweight, but even during his high-pressure 80-hour weeks, he spent time digging into global health issues on the nonprofit boards of Seattle-based PATH, and the Fred … Continue reading “Steve Davis, the Techie Turned Global Healthie, Gets Dose of Reality at Close Range in India”
Xconomy Forum on Health IT: Searching for the Consumer Payoff—or an App as Compelling as Facebook
With less than two weeks before we convene the Xconomy Forum on Health IT, I’m happy to report that our final arrangements have fallen into place. Lisa Suennen, a co-founder and managing member of the Psilos Group, is now officially in our lineup—which ensures that our consumer-centric discourse will be an insightful and entertaining evening. … Continue reading “Xconomy Forum on Health IT: Searching for the Consumer Payoff—or an App as Compelling as Facebook”
Bill Warner, Bill Taylor, and Diverse Mix of Startups Highlight “Big Tech Ideas” Roster on Dec. 8
If some is good, more is better. That’s certainly the case for “5×5: Five Cities, Five Big Tech Ideas,” the next Xconomy Forum taking place in Boston. It’s all happening on the afternoon of Dec. 8 at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, near South Station. We’ve got some big additions to the lineup. Bill … Continue reading “Bill Warner, Bill Taylor, and Diverse Mix of Startups Highlight “Big Tech Ideas” Roster on Dec. 8″
Hyperion Nails Pivotal Trial, ChemoCentryx Aims High Against Crohn’s, Vivus Shot Down by FDA, & More Bay Area Life Sciences News
Who am I kidding about the importance of biotech news this week? The San Francisco Giants and the election owned the news cycle, and rightfully so. I hear from a reliable source that Xconomy founder Bob Buderi, a Bay Area native and lifelong Giants fan, is “very happy.” But in case you missed a few … Continue reading “Hyperion Nails Pivotal Trial, ChemoCentryx Aims High Against Crohn’s, Vivus Shot Down by FDA, & More Bay Area Life Sciences News”
Uncle Sam Delivers $18.4M in Research Awards to Michigan Biotechs
Usually, people pay the Internal Revenue Service. But this week the IRS announced awards to biotech companies in Michigan and elsewhere in the U.S. through the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project program. The program awarded 57 Michigan firms a total of $18.4 million in grants, according to the IRS website. The program’s grants and tax credits—which … Continue reading “Uncle Sam Delivers $18.4M in Research Awards to Michigan Biotechs”
Biogen Announces Restructuring, FDA Approves Sunovion Drug, Acceleron Cuts Workforce, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News
There was good news and bad news in the Boston life sciences scene this past week. Some companies announced layoffs and restructuring, while others attracted funding and won regulatory approval. —Sunovion Pharmaceuticals of Marlborough, MA, nabbed FDA approval for Latuda (lurasidone HCl), its once-daily, oral tablet for treating schizophrenia. The drug is expected to hit … Continue reading “Biogen Announces Restructuring, FDA Approves Sunovion Drug, Acceleron Cuts Workforce, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”
Charles River Labs Closing Molecular Imaging Facility in Ann Arbor
Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:[[ticker:CRL]]) is closing its discovery and molecular imaging facility in Ann Arbor, MI, as part of a plan to save the struggling company $40 million in annual expenses. The Wilmington, MA-based contract research firm reported yesterday that it’s cutting 4 percent of its global work force in response to weakened demand … Continue reading “Charles River Labs Closing Molecular Imaging Facility in Ann Arbor”
Biogen Idec Closing San Diego Center, Cadence Wins FDA Approval, Adventrx Files New Drug Application, & More San Diego Life Sciences News
The question with the life sciences roundup this week is not so much, “Where to begin?” as it is “Where can we resume?” With the closure of Biogen Idec’s San Diego operation, local business leaders say it’s now a matter of picking up the pieces and starting over. — Weston, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]) … Continue reading “Biogen Idec Closing San Diego Center, Cadence Wins FDA Approval, Adventrx Files New Drug Application, & More San Diego Life Sciences News”
Is Cloudera the Next Oracle? CEO Mike Olson Hopes So
Cloud computing is expected to commoditize entire sectors of the IT industry over the next few years, and to create entirely new classes of big companies as well. One of those big companies will be Cloudera, says Mike Olson, the firm’s CEO. Or at least he hopes it will be Cloudera, a Palo Alto, CA-based … Continue reading “Is Cloudera the Next Oracle? CEO Mike Olson Hopes So”
‘It’s Happened Before:’ Biz Leaders React to Biogen Idec’s San Diego Shutdown
[Corrected 11/04/10, 9:25 am to reflect merger] When Cambridge, MA-based Biogen consummated its merger with San Diego’s Idec Pharmaceuticals in November 2003, Executive Chairman William H. Rastetter said, “Based on our existing collaboration in oncology, we knew that this combination would be an excellent fit, both operationally and culturally,” according to a statement issued at … Continue reading “‘It’s Happened Before:’ Biz Leaders React to Biogen Idec’s San Diego Shutdown”
Dendreon’s Plan to Meet Demand, Arch Banks on Ikaria IPO, RF Surgical Leaves No Sponge Behind, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News
There was that minor election thing this week, but the biotech community didn’t have the good sense to stand down and let the politicians hog all the spotlight. Get caught up on your headlines here. —Dendreon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DNDN]]) reported its third quarter financial results, and since this is just the second quarter of operations since … Continue reading “Dendreon’s Plan to Meet Demand, Arch Banks on Ikaria IPO, RF Surgical Leaves No Sponge Behind, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News”
ChemoCentryx, Pursuing the Dream For Autoimmune Disease, Seeks to Put a Pill in a Bottle
One of the big dreams in the pharmaceutical business is to develop a once-daily oral pill that can relieve symptoms of autoimmune diseases. These are the kind of energy-sapping, pain-inflicting, or disfiguring illnesses people get when the body’s immune system goes awry and attacks healthy tissue like it’s a foreign virus. No one has come … Continue reading “ChemoCentryx, Pursuing the Dream For Autoimmune Disease, Seeks to Put a Pill in a Bottle”
Get Them to the Geek Fest: Incorporating Analytics Into Everyday Software
Tom Clancy, the founder of San Diego-based Tao Venture Capital Partners (and not the author of “The Hunt for Red October”), recently gave me a glimpse of advances in analytics software that will be on stage next week at the San Diego “Supermath” conference on analytics. As the conference chairman, Clancy has a job that … Continue reading “Get Them to the Geek Fest: Incorporating Analytics Into Everyday Software”
Biogen Idec Chief Aims to Make Firm More Like Biotech and Less Like Pharma with Restructuring Plan
Biogen Idec is returning to its biotech roots, in a way. The Weston, MA-based company (NASDAQ:[[ticker:BIIB]]) made headlines yesterday for its plans to cut 650 full-time jobs and narrow its research and development focus to emphasize its core expertise in neurology. And a big part of the restructuring plan, the firm’s CEO, George Scangos, says, … Continue reading “Biogen Idec Chief Aims to Make Firm More Like Biotech and Less Like Pharma with Restructuring Plan”
Oracle Buys ATG for $1B, Acquia Raises $8.5M, Boston Scientific Sells Unit to Stryker for $1.5B, & More Boston-Area Deals News
If you like deals with a “billion” in them, this was the week for you. —Software maker Neohapsis of Cambridge, MA, raised $4.5 million in a deal led by New Venture Partners and joined by return backers Trident Capital and Paladin Capital Group. Neohapsis, which targets the governance, risk, and compliance market, also acquired the … Continue reading “Oracle Buys ATG for $1B, Acquia Raises $8.5M, Boston Scientific Sells Unit to Stryker for $1.5B, & More Boston-Area Deals News”
InfoReady Helps Customers Navigate $1 Trillion Grant Market With Search and Collaboration Software
Collaboration software for office workers isn’t new, and neither are technologies for doing refined, targeted Web searches. But Ann Arbor, MI-based InfoReady is combining those elements in a social networking-like interface to create a workflow tool that the company’s president and CEO Bhushan Kulkarni thinks will really shake things up. “I feel that we are … Continue reading “InfoReady Helps Customers Navigate $1 Trillion Grant Market With Search and Collaboration Software”
New Venture Redstar In the Works From ATG Founders
The startup bug just keeps on biting for Joe Chung and Jeet Singh, founders of Cambridge, MA-based Art Technology Group. On the heels of news of Oracle’s $1 billion acquisition of ATG, a developer of software for e-commerce websites, Singh confirmed to Xconomy a growing rumor in the Boston innovation community—that the duo is working … Continue reading “New Venture Redstar In the Works From ATG Founders”
Facebook Pushes Further Into Mobile
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this morning announced plans to extend Facebook’s influence in the mobile world, making it the center of a social ecosystem in which users would use their Facebook credentials to sign on to various services, reveal their locations, see where their friends are located, and find and claim deals from nearby businesses … Continue reading “Facebook Pushes Further Into Mobile”
Dendreon, Hemmed in By Tight Supply, Sees $350M to $400M in 2011 Sales Plan
Dendreon can’t reap the full potential of its pioneering treatment for prostate cancer until it gets more manufacturing capacity built up, but it’s making enough progress to project how this supply-constraint story will play out over the coming year. The Seattle-based biotech company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DNDN]]) said today that it generated $20.2 million in the most … Continue reading “Dendreon, Hemmed in By Tight Supply, Sees $350M to $400M in 2011 Sales Plan”
Acceleron Pharma Cuts 40 Percent of Workforce
[Updated: 3:57 pm Eastern] One of the hot privately-held biotech companies in the Boston area, Acceleron Pharma, has made some significant job cuts. The Cambridge, MA-based company eliminated 57 jobs, or about 40 percent of its workforce, late last month, according to a story first reported today in the Boston Globe. Acceleron’s vice president of … Continue reading “Acceleron Pharma Cuts 40 Percent of Workforce”
Motricity Breaks Profitability Barrier, Strikes New Mobile Deal With Indonesia’s Fastest-Growing Carrier
Bellevue, WA-based mobile Internet service provider Motricity (Nasdaq: [[ticker:MOTR]]), passed the profitability mark yesterday, when it posted its 2010 third quarter financial results. The company, which struggled through a disappointingly low $50 million IPO in June, is reporting its first ever positive net income, in the amount of $3.3 million for the three-month period that … Continue reading “Motricity Breaks Profitability Barrier, Strikes New Mobile Deal With Indonesia’s Fastest-Growing Carrier”