Layoffs are hitting the Northwest tech community this week—first Redfin, now Jive Software. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reports that Portland, OR-based Jive, a maker of social software for businesses, laid off about one-third of its staff, or about 40 people, yesterday. Among those who left the company are a vice president of engineering and a vice … Continue reading “Jive Software Jarred by Layoffs”
Category: National
UCSD Supercomputing Center Looks to Create More Business Partnerships
The new five-story building that doubles the size of the San Diego Supercomputer Center is more than just concrete, steel, and glass. As Fran Berman, SDSC director (and an Xconomist) said yesterday, the new building also represents the next generation in supercomputing—and she wants to ensure that San Diego’s emerging companies feel like they’re part … Continue reading “UCSD Supercomputing Center Looks to Create More Business Partnerships”
Highland’s Paul Maeder Taking Firm Into Energy Investments—Targeting Efficiency, Not “Science Projects”
Three or four years ago, Highland Capital Partners made one cleantech investment—in Amp Resources, a Nevada geothermal company that was sold last year to Italian power company Enel. That’s been it for Highland’s cleantech or energy deals. But all that is about to change: Highland general partner Paul Maeder, who traditionally has focused on information … Continue reading “Highland’s Paul Maeder Taking Firm Into Energy Investments—Targeting Efficiency, Not “Science Projects””
Arch, In an Earlier Warning, Told Companies To Buckle Down, Brace For the Worst
Sequoia Capital may have been late to the punch. The legendary Silicon Valley venture firm made headlines last week when it called an emergency meeting to warn entrepreneurs to brace for hard times, but it turns out Arch Venture Partners began advising its portfolio companies to start cutting back more than two weeks ago when … Continue reading “Arch, In an Earlier Warning, Told Companies To Buckle Down, Brace For the Worst”
Brightcove Aims at the Mainstream: Talking with CEO Jeremy Allaire
Tuesday brought two big pieces of news in the Internet video industry: The relaunch of New York-based Joost as a Hulu clone and the official launch of the newest video hosting platform from Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove. The former development was probably of more interest to consumers, who get an increasing portion of their video entertainment … Continue reading “Brightcove Aims at the Mainstream: Talking with CEO Jeremy Allaire”
Dendreon Sells $20M in Stock, Microsoft Teams Up with Scripps, Monster Buys BitWine, & More Seattle-Area Deals News
Heading deep into the battles of October (hang in there, Red Sox), dealflow has been fairly strong. The Northwest saw plenty of action in mobile, biotech, health care, and seed-stage tech funds in the past week. —Redmond, WA-based MobUI, a mobile software developer, acquired Bellevue, WA-based Action Engine, as Ryan reported. MobUI also raised new … Continue reading “Dendreon Sells $20M in Stock, Microsoft Teams Up with Scripps, Monster Buys BitWine, & More Seattle-Area Deals News”
Biogen Turns Down Dying Patient’s Request For Tysabri—and Explains Why
Biogen Idec has turned down the requests of the family and high-profile friends of a dying patient at the Mayo Clinic to provide an emergency dose of Tysabri to try to combat the man’s cancer—an unapproved use of the drug. It’s a vivid example of the ethically treacherous zone that companies must traverse when patients … Continue reading “Biogen Turns Down Dying Patient’s Request For Tysabri—and Explains Why”
Redfin Layoffs Bode Ill for Real Estate Startups
Is this the beginning of the end for online real estate companies? Yesterday, Seattle-based Redfin announced it had laid off roughly 20 percent of its employees, leaving it with a staff of about 75 spread across Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Chicago. The news comes as a serious blow to a company that … Continue reading “Redfin Layoffs Bode Ill for Real Estate Startups”
Harvard Spins Off Brand Monitoring Startup Crimson Hexagon
Harvard’s Office of Technology Development has been grabbing headlines this week. On Sunday, it went public with news about a Beverly, MA-based spinoff called SiOnyx that hopes to commercialize “black silicon,” a highly light-absorbant form of the material discovered in a Harvard physics lab. And today it took the lid off Crimson Hexagon, which plans … Continue reading “Harvard Spins Off Brand Monitoring Startup Crimson Hexagon”
Brightcove Makes Web Video Publishing Easier, Cheaper
Brightcove, the Cambridge, MA-based Internet video publisher founded in 2004 by Boston-area serial entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, today introduced a thoroughly overhauled version of its video hosting platform. The company says the new service, called Brightcove 3, is designed to help big media companies get more creative about the way they deploy video on their websites, … Continue reading “Brightcove Makes Web Video Publishing Easier, Cheaper”
New Pfizer Incubator Chief Looks Far and Wide for New Science, But Backs Off Plans for Boston Site
Mark Benedyk follows a broad charter for The Pfizer Incubator (TPI): to find and nurture the best science in the world to feed the R&D machine for its parent company, global drug giant Pfizer (NYSE:[[ticker:PFE]]). Benedyk, a biotech industry veteran, took the reins of TPI in January, and he has plans to expand the reach … Continue reading “New Pfizer Incubator Chief Looks Far and Wide for New Science, But Backs Off Plans for Boston Site”
Concert Pharmaceuticals, Flush With Well-Timed Venture Round, Aims for Hot Flashes, HIV
Concert Pharmaceuticals caught my eye a few weeks back with something unusual—an experimental drug for the hot flashes women get during menopause, without the risks of standard hormone-replacement therapy. I didn’t have a chance to interview CEO Roger Tung last month when his Lexington, MA-based company took this drug into its first clinical trial, so … Continue reading “Concert Pharmaceuticals, Flush With Well-Timed Venture Round, Aims for Hot Flashes, HIV”
Five Seattle-Area Companies, and an Apprentice, Join WTIA’s Mobile Mission to China
‘Tis the season for grand tours of Asia. Last week, we covered life on the road with Intellectual Ventures, as the Bellevue, WA-based invention firm launched offices in five Asian countries, including China. This week, it’s the Washington Technology Industry Association’s turn. Together with the Washington State Community, Trade and Economic Development office, the WTIA … Continue reading “Five Seattle-Area Companies, and an Apprentice, Join WTIA’s Mobile Mission to China”
CMC Icos Sees Expanding Markets for Biotech Drugs With New Factory
CMC Icos Biologics made news a couple weeks ago when it said it plans to expand its biotech drug factory in Bothell, and double its workforce there to about 250 employees in three to four years. The big question in my mind was why, so I tracked down CMC Icos president Gustavo Mahler to ask. … Continue reading “CMC Icos Sees Expanding Markets for Biotech Drugs With New Factory”
Fallbrook Follows Qualcomm’s Patent Strategy With Innovative Transmission For Vehicles
Bill Klehm may not be aware of his wordplay when he says, “We’re seeing significant traction in the European bicycle market and in light electric vehicles.” Klehm, 45, is the chief executive of San Diego’s Fallbrook Technologies, a startup that has been developing an innovative transmission without gears. The company says its “NuVinci” technology is … Continue reading “Fallbrook Follows Qualcomm’s Patent Strategy With Innovative Transmission For Vehicles”
How to Build a Successful Innovation Ecosystem: Educate, Network, and Celebrate
Last week, I was honored to give a keynote speech in Dublin, Ireland, at an international symposium marking the launch of the nation’s ambitious new R&D program in energy by its NSF equivalent, the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI). The Symposium on Science and Engineering Underpinning Sustainable Energies and Energy-Efficiency was an excellent opportunity to … Continue reading “How to Build a Successful Innovation Ecosystem: Educate, Network, and Celebrate”
Takeda Hands $20M Over to Alnylam, Skyhook Helps Mozilla Find its Way, Nuance Nabs Nokia Agreement, & More Boston-Area Deals News
For those of you who had a long weekend like we did, welcome back. And to refresh your memory about last week’s Boston-area tech and life sciences deals… —Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, MA, helped aim a $20 million Series B financing at San Mateo, CA-based internet video advertising firm BlackArrow. Cisco Systems, Comcast Interactive … Continue reading “Takeda Hands $20M Over to Alnylam, Skyhook Helps Mozilla Find its Way, Nuance Nabs Nokia Agreement, & More Boston-Area Deals News”
Taking a Day Off
Between the launch of our San Diego site and putting together our soon-to-be announced energy event everybody’s been working their tails off here at Xconomy, so I gave the boys a day off. Oh, and evidently something happened 516 years ago involving some Italian guy and three sailboats, but we’re all a little conflicted about … Continue reading “Taking a Day Off”
SiOnyx Brings “Black Silicon” into the Light; Material Could Upend Solar, Imaging Industries
Silicon is a wonderfully cooperative element. It takes relatively little energy to promote the electrons in a silicon crystal from their usual, docile orbits around the atomic nuclei into wild, free circulation. That’s what makes silicon a semiconductor—valuable for electronic switching devices such as transistors, sensing devices such as the CCDs in cameras and X-ray … Continue reading “SiOnyx Brings “Black Silicon” into the Light; Material Could Upend Solar, Imaging Industries”
Scripps Health Teams Up With Microsoft and Others for Genetic Testing Study
It was almost exactly a year ago that Microsoft launched its HealthVault service, a secure online database for users to store and manage their medical records. And in recent months, we’ve reported on the software giant’s increasing efforts in health care, including its new partnerships with prescription drug provider CVS Caremark and Boston, MA-based health … Continue reading “Scripps Health Teams Up With Microsoft and Others for Genetic Testing Study”
Playful vs. Preachy: Sizing Up TV’s New Science Dramas
Crime shows generally turn me off, but for years I’ve enjoyed CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, because (as I’ve written before) the heroes are scientists. They catch crooks not by outgunning them, but by observing, hypothesizing, and testing. Of course, the dramatic license that CSI and other series sometimes take with real-world science can be disturbing: … Continue reading “Playful vs. Preachy: Sizing Up TV’s New Science Dramas”
UW, Microsoft Research Aim to Turn Northwest Into a Neural Engineering Hotspot
The minute I walked into an auditorium at Microsoft Research in Redmond last night, I knew this was going to be a fun event. In foot-high letters, someone wrote on a white board, “FOOD BEHIND THIS WALL. EAT.” It turns out that that someone, who clearly had an innate sense for how to get people … Continue reading “UW, Microsoft Research Aim to Turn Northwest Into a Neural Engineering Hotspot”
MIT’s Langer, Renowned for Inventing Solutions to Medical Problems, Strives to Do the Same for Hurricanes
When renowned MIT professor (and Xconomist) Bob Langer spoke last month at our Xconomy Forum on building life sciences companies—a task at which he has been exceedingly successful—we weren’t expecting him to mention that he has struggled for some eight years to raise money to study “hurricane mitigation.” It turns out that Langer—a chemical engineer … Continue reading “MIT’s Langer, Renowned for Inventing Solutions to Medical Problems, Strives to Do the Same for Hurricanes”
Leroy Hood, Turning 70, Still Aims to Accomplish “The Most Ambitious Things of My Career”
It’s hard to believe Leroy Hood—a guy busy enough to employ not one, but two full-time executive assistants—is turning 70 today. But it’s true. This milestone seemed to be as good a reason as any to catch up with the biotechnology pioneer. So I stopped by his office at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) … Continue reading “Leroy Hood, Turning 70, Still Aims to Accomplish “The Most Ambitious Things of My Career””
Cypress Bioscience, Developer of Fibromyalgia Drug, Eagerly Awaits FDA Deadline
Cypress Bioscience is one of those biotech companies that has limped along for more than 20 years, losing loads of money. In the lovely language of chief operating officer Sabrina Johnson, it has gone through “several reincarnations.” The company now expects to find out by the end of this month whether its latest incarnation will … Continue reading “Cypress Bioscience, Developer of Fibromyalgia Drug, Eagerly Awaits FDA Deadline”
WTIA Launches Survey on Impact of Financial Crisis
It’s what everyone is talking about: the global financial crisis, and its impact on business and markets. But more specifically, what is its impact on local-area tech businesses and innovation, and how will people respond to it? Here at Xconomy, we’ve posed those important questions to some of our distinguished network of Xconomists—leaders in technology, … Continue reading “WTIA Launches Survey on Impact of Financial Crisis”
Institute for Systems Biology, UW Researchers Win Bulk of $68M Grants To Study Flu, SARS
Seattle researchers snapped up the lion’s share of a massive round of grants announced today by the National Institutes of Health. The Institute for Systems Biology, the University of Washington, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA—along with a group at Stanford University—have been awarded five-year grants totaling $68.7 million to study dangerous … Continue reading “Institute for Systems Biology, UW Researchers Win Bulk of $68M Grants To Study Flu, SARS”
Death of Good Times? Hardly
I guess when you are Sequoia, you can hold a big public media-attended meeting where you display a faux tombstone ominously announcing the death of the Good Times. My approach has to be a little bit different. The investments that I am making, both at Accelerator and OVP Venture Partners, are generally years from accessing … Continue reading “Death of Good Times? Hardly”
Ethanol Entrepreneur Marks His Comeback
After years of disappointment, Mike Lewis is finding encouragement in small signs that business is coming back to life for Pearson Fuels. Lewis opened Pearson Fuels in a blighted San Diego neighborhood in 2003, with financial backing from the owners of a local Ford dealership, where he had worked in finance. It was part of … Continue reading “Ethanol Entrepreneur Marks His Comeback”
Boston Scientific Co-Founders Sell Stock; Didn’t Mean It, Company Says
Lots of people have been selling Boston Scientific stock, and that includes the co-founders of the company. The Natick, MA-based medical device company (NYSE: [[ticker:BSX]]) said today that co-founders Pete Nicholas and John Abele (an Xconomist) sold off about 13 million of their shares in the company yesterday, during frenzied volume of 38 million shares … Continue reading “Boston Scientific Co-Founders Sell Stock; Didn’t Mean It, Company Says”
Silicon Valley Sounds the Alarm—Sequoia Calls Emergency Meeting Warning Entrepreneurs to Brace for Financial Impact
The word spread quickly through the Silicon Valley blogosphere and around the entrepreneurial and venture worlds last night: legendary California venture capitalist Mike Moritz and the Sequoia Capital folks had called an emergency meeting of the firm’s portfolio-company leaders and told them to brace for what might well be the worst economic times they had … Continue reading “Silicon Valley Sounds the Alarm—Sequoia Calls Emergency Meeting Warning Entrepreneurs to Brace for Financial Impact”
One Year Old, Widgetbucks Steps Up Attack on Google Ads
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of Widgetbucks, the online ad network from Seattle-based startup Mpire. Founded in 2005, Mpire’s story makes for a pretty compelling case study in adapting to the market. Although the verdict isn’t in yet—we’ll see how much market share it ends up taking from Google ads, for … Continue reading “One Year Old, Widgetbucks Steps Up Attack on Google Ads”
Provasculon, a Biogen-backed Startup, Testing Regenerative Medicine on Hearts
Provasculon is tackling one of the bigger ideas in regenerative medicine—how to stimulate growth of new blood vessels after they’ve been damaged by a heart attack. The Cambridge, MA-based startup hasn’t drawn a lot of attention since it was unveiled in March, but since it’s the second company that Biogen Idec has decided to bet … Continue reading “Provasculon, a Biogen-backed Startup, Testing Regenerative Medicine on Hearts”
Dendreon Stays in the Hunt, Lilly Makes Amends, Calistoga Hires First CEO, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News
Fall is in the air, at least one baseball team in an Xconomy city is still alive (Red Sox, of course) and biotech news is coming out full throttle every day. Isn’t it a wonderful time of year? —Dendreon announced that its interim analysis of the 500-patient Impact trial of Provenge wasn’t the sort of … Continue reading “Dendreon Stays in the Hunt, Lilly Makes Amends, Calistoga Hires First CEO, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News”
Garamendi Takes Soft Energy Path in San Diego
California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who announced an early start to his 2010 gubernatorial bid in July, signaled his support yesterday for a new technology cluster emerging in San Diego. The new cluster is focused on cleantech and renewable energy in the cross-border region of San Diego and Imperial Counties and Baja California, which Garamendi … Continue reading “Garamendi Takes Soft Energy Path in San Diego”
Founder’s Co-op Raises $1.8M From Seattle Internet Entrepreneurs
Founder’s Co-op, the Seattle-based tech incubator founded by Andy Sack and Chris DeVore, has gathered a $1.8 million investment round from some well-known Seattle Internet entrepreneurs, according to this report in TechCrunch. Ben Elowitz of Wetpaint and Blue Nile, Alex Algard of Whitepages.com, and Adam Brotman of Play Network all participated in the round, according … Continue reading “Founder’s Co-op Raises $1.8M From Seattle Internet Entrepreneurs”
Spiration Enters European Market with Device for Lung Disease
Spiration can now say it has its first marketed product. The Redmond, WA-based medical device maker said today that its partner, Tokyo-based Olympus, has started selling its device for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Europe. Spiration will manufacture the product, called the IBV Valve System, and Olympus will market it initially to select European physicians … Continue reading “Spiration Enters European Market with Device for Lung Disease”
Mozilla Adapts Skyhook’s Loki Location-Finding System for Firefox
When you open the Google Maps application on the Apple iPhone and click the “target” button, the device pulls up a local map and shows your current position as a blue dot. You could easily do the same thing on your laptop—if, that is, your Web browser could communicate with a location-sensing device in your … Continue reading “Mozilla Adapts Skyhook’s Loki Location-Finding System for Firefox”
No Appeal for Boston Scientific, No Luck for CombinatoRx Drug, No Complaints From Harvard, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News
Overall, the news from Boston-area life sciences firms this past was not as much of a bummer as the first part of the headline might imply, but this first one isn’t great either… —Cambridge, MA-based Idera Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:IDRA]]) reported that its experimental drug, IMO-2055, failed to have the desired effect on tumor size in a … Continue reading “No Appeal for Boston Scientific, No Luck for CombinatoRx Drug, No Complaints From Harvard, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”
On the Road with Intellectual Ventures’ Global Head of Technology, Patrick Ennis
It’s 10:15 pm, and Patrick Ennis is in a taxi bound for the airport in Delhi, India. He’s getting ready for a 1:00 am flight to Beijing. The streets of India are legendary for displaying 2,000 years of transportation history in one place—animals, pedestrians, carts, bikes, cars, buses, trucks—and it sounds like tonight is no … Continue reading “On the Road with Intellectual Ventures’ Global Head of Technology, Patrick Ennis”
Sequenom, Fueled by Blood Test for Down’s, Aims To Be “Google of Molecular Diagnostics”
Life is good at Sequenom these days. CEO Harry Stylli was so relaxed when I stopped by for an interview last week, he was practically lying down in one of the guest chairs in his office at one point while telling me the company’s story. San Diego-based Sequenom had its breakout moment on September 23. … Continue reading “Sequenom, Fueled by Blood Test for Down’s, Aims To Be “Google of Molecular Diagnostics””
At Pixily, Cloud Computing Quenches the Downpour of Paper
I am not a David Allen disciple, but the one practice I did adopt after reading his time-management bible Getting Things Done many years ago was to start a filing system for the stacks of papers that used to cause a distracting mess around my home and office. As a result, I’ve got about six … Continue reading “At Pixily, Cloud Computing Quenches the Downpour of Paper”
Calistoga Builds Cancer Drug Strategy, Hires First CEO, Carol Gallagher
Calistoga Pharmaceuticals is growing up. The Seattle biotech company, which raised its founding $21 million round in March 2007, is announcing today it has hired its first CEO, Carol Gallagher, an executive who led the Rituxan oncology team at Biogen Idec when it crossed the $1 billion mark in sales. I stopped by Calistoga’s offices … Continue reading “Calistoga Builds Cancer Drug Strategy, Hires First CEO, Carol Gallagher”
Biochemistry Tool-Maker Roger Tsien Looks for the Pass Through the Mountains (Update: Tsien Wins Nobel Prize)
Updated, Oct. 8, 5 am PST: Roger Tsien was not only on the short list for the Nobel Prize in chemistry—he won it! See below for more details: Was it me, or did researchers’ heads whip around yesterday as I walked through Roger Tsien’s biochemistry laboratory at U.C. San Diego? If there was an atmosphere … Continue reading “Biochemistry Tool-Maker Roger Tsien Looks for the Pass Through the Mountains (Update: Tsien Wins Nobel Prize)”
Keith Grinstein, 1960-2008, Was Larger Than Life
The Seattle community lost a giant last week, when Keith Grinstein passed away at the age of 48. A memorial service for Grinstein, the chairman of Coinstar and a venture capitalist at Second Avenue Partners, was held yesterday afternoon in Seattle. I wanted to post a couple of thoughts from the community that I’ve gathered. … Continue reading “Keith Grinstein, 1960-2008, Was Larger Than Life”
MyPunchbowl Reinvents Online Party Invitations
Everyone has a neighbor or a relative who loves to throw parties—you know, the people who make their Halloween or Christmas extravaganza bigger every year, with more lights, lawn ornaments, costumes, and food. The folks at Punchbowl Software are a lot like that: they keep overhauling their Web 2.0 party-planning website MyPunchbowl, making it fancier … Continue reading “MyPunchbowl Reinvents Online Party Invitations”
Lilly Patches Up Relationships in Seattle Biotech, Pushes TB Drug Discovery
Eli Lilly did some fence-mending today with the Seattle biotech community. Almost two years ago, the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant took over Icos, the Northwest’s most valuable biotech company, grabbing the billion-dollar erectile dysfunction drug it created and sending 365 talented local workers to the unemployment lines. It’s a story you often see with big drugmakers … Continue reading “Lilly Patches Up Relationships in Seattle Biotech, Pushes TB Drug Discovery”
Private Equity Funds Raised in New England—The Third Quarter List
Earlier today, we reported on national private equity fundraising trends through the year’s first three quarters—trends that put the U.S. on a pace to surpass last year’s record total of $313 billion raised. We were finally able to track down the list of New England funds raised (some are still open, so the figures could … Continue reading “Private Equity Funds Raised in New England—The Third Quarter List”
U.S. Private Equity Firms On Pace For Record Fundraising Year through Q3: But Does Anyone Think It Will Last?
Last week I wrote a story about Highland Capital Partners’ all-out 20th anniversary bash here in Boston entitled, What Financial Crisis? The same title might be fitting for a piece about the data on private equity fundraising that was released today. Buoyed by a strong third quarter, private equity firms—including venture firms like Highland—are on … Continue reading “U.S. Private Equity Firms On Pace For Record Fundraising Year through Q3: But Does Anyone Think It Will Last?”
Harvard Banks Record $125M Donation for New “Biologically Inspired Engineering” Institute
Harvard University has received a gift of $125 million from billionaire philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss to support the formation of a new research institute for biological engineering, The Harvard Crimson reports. The Crimson called the gift the largest in Harvard’s history, topping what had been a record donation of $100 million in April from David Rockefeller … Continue reading “Harvard Banks Record $125M Donation for New “Biologically Inspired Engineering” Institute”