Mingle and talk tech with your fellow FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area in this evening tech-fest sponsored by O’Reilly Media and organized by attendees. Apple iPhone hacker Jonathan Zdziarski and security expert John Viega kick off with keynote talks, followed by lightning-fast, five-minute presentations from local innovators (no sales pitches … Continue reading “Ignite Boston 3”
CBS Buys CNET—A Nice Spark for Spark
The news wires were ablaze last Thursday with word that CBS was moving to extend its online reach by acquiring CNET Networks for a cool $1.8 billion—a 45 percent premium over CNET’s trading price the day before. That wasn’t a local story, and we were just following along because we like big online media buys. … Continue reading “CBS Buys CNET—A Nice Spark for Spark”
OLPC Teams With Microsoft, Wired Bonds with Ars Technica, Greenfuel Gets More Green, & More Deals News
There was a steady flow of Boston-area deals last week—not to mention a couple of nice ones for our fellow tech-media companies. —The One Laptop Per Child Foundation forged an agreement with Microsoft to make versions of the foundation’s XO laptop that run Windows XP (even as former OLPC president of software and content Walter … Continue reading “OLPC Teams With Microsoft, Wired Bonds with Ars Technica, Greenfuel Gets More Green, & More Deals News”
Wetpaint Receives $25,000,000 Series C Financing
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=1135ec0a-8c74-478e-a35b-a6f86bb7c498&Preview=1 Date 5/19/2008 Company Name Wetpaint Mailing Address 307 3rd Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104 Company Description Wetpaint is changing the way people share and collaborate about passions and interests online through its consumer-friendly Wiki platform. For the first time, anyone who knows how to use Microsoft Word can use Wetpaint to … Continue reading “Wetpaint Receives $25,000,000 Series C Financing”
Veodia Receives $8,300,000 Series A Funding Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=3db4a630-e8ac-47b1-bfa1-13c62ce52ea8&Preview=1 Date 5/18/2008 Company Name Veodia Mailing Address 1825 S. Grant St. San Mateo, CA 94402 Company Description Using MPEG-4 / h.264 technology, Veodia’s video broadcasting service makes it easy and inexpensive for businesses, universities, religious institutions, and even professional bloggers to broadcast high-quality live video and digitally archive content for on-demand … Continue reading “Veodia Receives $8,300,000 Series A Funding Round”
Ars Technica Reportedly Bought By Condé Nast for $25 Million
Ars Technica, the widely read Malden, MA, tech blog for the computer set, has been acquired by media giant Condé Nast and will effectively become part of Wired and its growing digital assets, TechCrunch is reporting this afternoon. The purchase price is in the neighborhood of $25 million, about the same as what Condé Nast … Continue reading “Ars Technica Reportedly Bought By Condé Nast for $25 Million”
Xanthus Sold for $52M
British drug company Antisoma reported today that it has picked up Cambridge, MA-based Xanthus Pharmaceuticals for about $52 million in shares. Xanthus focuses on therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases and has five drugs in clinical development. One of them is an oral cancer drug that is already marketed outside the U.S. by Bayer-Schering Pharma.
The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Screens
Liquid-crystal displays are getting bigger by the minute. These days, you can buy a huge 58-inch wide-screen LCD HDTV for under $3,000. Heck, at that price, you could buy 64 of them and hire Los Gatos, CA-based 9X Media to assemble them into a video wall large enough to hold its own in Times Square. … Continue reading “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Screens”
Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines
Walter Bender, the former president of software and content for the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, contacted Xconomy this morning to alert us to the creation of Sugar Labs, a non-profit foundation that will work on new versions of Sugar, the learning-oriented graphical interface Bender developed for the OLPC’s XO Laptop. Coming on the heels … Continue reading “Bender Creates Sugar Labs—New Foundation to Adapt OLPC’s Laptop Interface for Other Machines”
HubSpot Optimizes With $12 Million Financing Round
Search engine optimization and online marketing software provider and consultancy HubSpot has raised $12 million in a Series B round led by Matrix Partners, the Cambridge, MA-based company announced. Wade wrote about HubSpot in August, around the time it received $5 million from Cambridge’s General Catalyst Partners. As he described the firm, “the company’s Web-based … Continue reading “HubSpot Optimizes With $12 Million Financing Round”
Tough Times are the Right Times for Entrepreneurs, Says TiE Boston’s New Executive Director
The first thing I want to know is what “TiE” stands for. Answer: The Indus Entrepreneurs, which reflects the South Asian background of the organization’s charter members. But over the years, TiE has sometimes been referred to as “Talent, Ideas and Enterprise” and “The Innovative Ecosystems.” So excuse my confusion. (I would opt for “Twin … Continue reading “Tough Times are the Right Times for Entrepreneurs, Says TiE Boston’s New Executive Director”
HubSpot, Inc. Secures $12,000,000 Series B Financing
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=26ea4276-6af0-493f-8405-578fd9eb0bf9&Preview=1 Date 5/16/2008 Company Name HubSpot, Inc. Mailing Address One Broadway, 14th Floor Cambridge, MA 02142 Company Description HubSpot is an Internet marketing software platform that enables your company to get more leads from your website by driving more prospects to your website and converting more of them into leads. HubSpot software … Continue reading “HubSpot, Inc. Secures $12,000,000 Series B Financing”
Antisoma Plc Acquires Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for $52,200,000
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=6391d6ef-a6ee-4544-9993-5545f3fe5225&Preview=1 Date 5/16/2008 Company Name Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mailing Address 300 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139 Company Description Xanthus is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, acquisition and commercialization of small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disorders. Website http://www.xanthus.com Transaction Type M&A Transaction Amount $52,200,000 Transaction Round … Continue reading “Antisoma Plc Acquires Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for $52,200,000”
XO Laptop Goes Windows
Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation have reached an official agreement to produce versions of the foundation’s XO Laptop that run Windows XP. The move is intended in part to overcome resistance to the XO among bureaucrats in countries where OLPC would like to distribute the laptop. “The people who buy the machines … Continue reading “XO Laptop Goes Windows”
Introducing Greg. He Rocks.
Astute readers will have noticed a new byline cropping up on Xconomy for the last week or so. It’s our new Seattle editor, Greg Huang. Seattle? Yeah, that’s what I said—more on that very soon. But Greg is filing stories from the Boston home office before he heads west so we thought you should know … Continue reading “Introducing Greg. He Rocks.”
OmniGuide Pulls Off Planned $25M Financing Round
Yoel Fink was a hard man to get a hold of back in March when Neil interviewed the OmniGuide CEO. Fink explained at the time that he was busy courting potential investors in a Series E round of funding for his Cambridge, MA-based medical device company, and that he hoped to raise $25 million to … Continue reading “OmniGuide Pulls Off Planned $25M Financing Round”
Diagnostics-For-All Wins it All in 100K Competition
Diagnostics-For-All, a non-profit venture aiming to provide low-cost diagnostic tools to global health workers, won the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition last night. It’s been a week of business plan and entrepreneurship prizes, as we have chronicled in a series of articles. But the 19-year-old 100K competition is the granddaddy of them all. Organizers say the … Continue reading “Diagnostics-For-All Wins it All in 100K Competition”
A Smarter Way to Scoot Through the City
If you ride a bike to work this week, chances are that somebody will give you, if not a free lunch, then at least a free breakfast. The meals are one of the activities organized during Bay State Bike Week. If not even a muffin and a cup of coffee will convince you to start … Continue reading “A Smarter Way to Scoot Through the City”
OmniGuide, Inc. Lands $25,000,000 Series E Financing Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=4ad670ce-60b6-4846-8325-a9cb5071cc1d&Preview=1 Date 5/15/2008 Company Name OmniGuide, Inc. Mailing Address One Kendall Square, Building 100, 3rd Floor Cambridge, MA 02139 Company Description OmniGuide, Inc. develops and manufactures disposable cutting tools for minimally invasive surgery, based on a unique fiber technology for guiding high power laser light. Website http://www.omni-guide.com Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction … Continue reading “OmniGuide, Inc. Lands $25,000,000 Series E Financing Round”
GreenFuel Technologies Secures $13,900,000 Series B Funding
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=b3724a5c-defa-475c-b55a-dfdc96066144&Preview=1 Date 5/15/2008 Company Name GreenFuel Technologies Mailing Address 735 Concord Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Company Description With more than a dozen pending patents, GreenFuel Technologies is the leading developer of algae bioreactor systems that can convert flue gases into clean, renewable biofuels. Website http://www.greenfuelonline.com/ Transaction Type Venture Equity Transaction Amount $13,900,000 … Continue reading “GreenFuel Technologies Secures $13,900,000 Series B Funding”
Al Gore Eyeing Big Investment in Clean Energy Prize Winner
It’s been a big week for FloDesign Wind Turbine. On Monday the company placed first in the MIT Enterprise Forum’s Ignite Clean Energy Competition, winning $100,000 in cash and services. On Tuesday, the company netted an additional $200,000 in cash by winning the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize Competition. Which means that the company, a … Continue reading “Al Gore Eyeing Big Investment in Clean Energy Prize Winner”
Greenfuel Extends Funding Round, Collects $13.9 Million
Greenfuel Technologies, the Cambridge, MA-based algae farming company temporarily headed by Polaris Venture Partners general partner Bob Metcalfe, said today that it has collected an additional $13.9 million in venture capital from inside investors in an extension of its Series B funding round. The money, which will be used to retire debt and scale up … Continue reading “Greenfuel Extends Funding Round, Collects $13.9 Million”
PV Annual 2008: Shedding Light on Solar
Greentech Media sponsors a daylong conferenced focused on the global market for photovoltaic (PV) solar energy technology. Data to be presented includes: * Global PV module demand, through end of year 2007 * Solar equipment ASPs * Silicon supply issues * Polysilicon capacity growth forecasts * Silicon pricing * Concentrating PV technologies and economics * … Continue reading “PV Annual 2008: Shedding Light on Solar”
Fate Therapeutics Names Executive Chairman
Earlier this week we reported that bi-coastal biotech Fate Therapeutics had named its new CEO, Paul Grayson. Today the company officially announced Grayson, as well as the appointment of John Mendlein as executive chairman. Mendlein was most recently CEO of Boston-based Adnexus Therapeutics, which was bought by Bristol-Myers Squibb last October for more than $505 … Continue reading “Fate Therapeutics Names Executive Chairman”
Google’s Open House: Of Ping-Pong, the Gov, and Four Local Projects
It wouldn’t be a visit to Google if it didn’t include a game of some sort. In the elevator on the way up to Google’s new Kendall Square digs, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was “talking smack” about his table-tennis prowess, according to Google’s Cambridge site director Stephen Vinter. So before allowing the governor to leave … Continue reading “Google’s Open House: Of Ping-Pong, the Gov, and Four Local Projects”
The Next Great Internet Company—Who Cares? A Few Observations from Inside the 100K Contest
What will be the next great Internet company? Will it be a firm developing technology for online video guides, or one with a new way to assess and manage Web security risks? Maybe it will be a company mining customer data for small and medium-sized businesses, one building an online ad management system for Chinese … Continue reading “The Next Great Internet Company—Who Cares? A Few Observations from Inside the 100K Contest”
Greentech Media Raises $2.75M in Series B
Greentech Media, an online media company based in Cambridge, MA, announced that it has raised $2.75 million in Series B funding. EGORA Holding and the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund co-led the round. Greentech Media, which launched last September, covers news and research in the clean energy and technology space.
We, Robot: The Greater Boston Robotics Cluster
OK, we’re big on robots around here. From iRobot’s landmark court case to Kiva’s shuffling warehouse bots, from the FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology) high-school robot competition to Hydroid’s Navy contract for robot submarines, we’ve been covering the business of bots in depth and on the ground since our inception. And … Continue reading “We, Robot: The Greater Boston Robotics Cluster”
FloDesign Wins 200K Energy Prize
Updated—There was a lot of energy in the room. And why not? It was the finals of the MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize competition—and five finalists were vying for the $200,000 cash grand prize. Some 150 folks attended the event last night at Le Meridien Hotel in Cambridge, MA. And when it was over, the … Continue reading “FloDesign Wins 200K Energy Prize”
BSX Meets With Much Approval, Biogen and Icahn Set the (Showdown) Date, Fate’s Fate Revealed, Win Free Stuff, & More Life Sciences News
Each week I round up the latest news from the New England life sciences cluster, but this week I also want to offer you, gentle reader, the opportunity to share your views on the cluster, as part of a survey we’re helping PricewaterhouseCoopers conduct. Participating in the survey is a great chance to help key … Continue reading “BSX Meets With Much Approval, Biogen and Icahn Set the (Showdown) Date, Fate’s Fate Revealed, Win Free Stuff, & More Life Sciences News”
Talyst Obtains $20,000,000 Series C Financing
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=e1c1e130-e5a6-4ced-b6e0-bc81fceff565&Preview=1 Date 5/14/2008 Company Name Talyst Mailing Address 13555 SE 36th St Bellevue, WA 98006 Company Description Talyst enables the intelligent pharmacy. The company provides automated systems to hospitals and other centralized pharmacies, to reduce costs and increase productivity, while improving accuracy and patient safety. Its equipment and software are used to … Continue reading “Talyst Obtains $20,000,000 Series C Financing”
Polaris Backs Widget-Maker Sprout
Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners is the lead funder in a $5 million Series B financing found for Sprout, a San Francisco- and Honolulu-based company that makes software for creating Web widgets, the venture firm announced today. Sprout’s widgets, which can be as complex as mini-websites with tabs, slide shows, and music, are mainly used … Continue reading “Polaris Backs Widget-Maker Sprout”
Bird Flies the Coop: A Startup Social Enterprise Heads From MIT To Pakistan
Attention entrepreneurs: it isn’t always about the technology. Often the real innovation lies in the distribution or business model. Take the problem of providing clean drinking water in developing countries. The technology needed to make individual water supplies safe isn’t rocket science—it ranges from purifier packets of chlorine to special containers that use sunlight to … Continue reading “Bird Flies the Coop: A Startup Social Enterprise Heads From MIT To Pakistan”
In Defense of the Drivable Airplane—Terrafugia CEO Responds to Legions of Doubters
We know our readers love to hear about radical new technologies and the business opportunities they create. So we weren’t shocked when our article last week about the Transition, the drivable airplane from Woburn, MA-based Terrafugia, turned up on Slashdot and brought more visitors to the site than any Xconomy story since our launch last … Continue reading “In Defense of the Drivable Airplane—Terrafugia CEO Responds to Legions of Doubters”
On EveryScape, Your Memo Marks the Spot
The folks at EveryScape in Waltham, MA, have been busy trying to live up to their company’s ambitious tag line, “The Real World Online.” At the Where 2.0 conference in Burlingame, CA, today, the startup plans to announce several useful upgrades to its online catalog of street-level views of 14 world cities, including a social … Continue reading “On EveryScape, Your Memo Marks the Spot”
Greentech Media Obtains $2,750,000 Series B Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=7ddd7b74-a045-461f-acb8-5b3eecb584b9&Preview=1 Date 5/13/2008 Company Name Greentech Media Mailing Address 1132 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138 Company Description Greentech Media was founded in January 2007 with the vision of creating a fully integrated online-media company comprised of cutting-edge news, in-depth technical research & analysis, and focused industry events. Research and analysis is an … Continue reading “Greentech Media Obtains $2,750,000 Series B Round”
Gevo Garners $17,000,000 Series C Round
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=080dc8d2-1235-475b-98db-ec5f871074b3&Preview=1 Date 5/13/2008 Company Name Gevo Mailing Address 345 Inverness Drive South Englewood, CO 80112 Company Description Gevo (NASDAQ: GEVO) is focused on a new generation of fuels and related products serving the transportation markets: cars, trucks, and airplanes. This new generation of fuels and products will deliver the performance, cost, and … Continue reading “Gevo Garners $17,000,000 Series C Round”
Fate Therapeutics Chooses CEO—Will Be Based in San Diego
After a months-long hunt, Fate Therapeutics, the superstar-laden, bi-coastal stem cell startup backed chiefly by Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners and Arch Venture Partners of Seattle, has named its CEO, the Seattle Times reported and company sources confirmed today. The CEO choice is Paul Grayson, previously of the San Diego arm of California-based Sanderling Ventures, … Continue reading “Fate Therapeutics Chooses CEO—Will Be Based in San Diego”
Iron Mountain Buys DocuVault
Iron Mountain, the Boston-based information protection and storage company, said today that it has purchased Denver, CO-based DocuVault for an undisclosed sum. Iron Mountain execs said the acquisition of DocuVault, which specializes in shredding, records storage, and data backup, shores up its presence in the Denver-Colorado Springs area.
Afeyan Wins Ellis Island Medal of Honor
Xconomist Noubar Afeyan, co-founder and CEO of Flagship Ventures in Cambridge, MA, was one of those awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition (NECO) over the weekend. Afeyan received the award in recognition of “his achievements not only as a successful technologist and entrepreneur, but also as a humanitarian who … Continue reading “Afeyan Wins Ellis Island Medal of Honor”
Backstage at Energy Idol: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of the 200K Energy Prize
Last Thursday, I met Chad Lovell, a first-year student at MIT, standing in a small lobby on the third floor of a State Street office building in downtown Boston. It was the day of the semifinals of MIT’s Clean Energy Entpreneurship Prize competition, which carries a $200,000 award for the best business plan. Lovell, one … Continue reading “Backstage at Energy Idol: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of the 200K Energy Prize”
Elixir Pulls IPO, Mascoma Runs With Marathon, InnoCentive Gets an Incentive, Novartis Ups Alnylam Stake, & More Deals News
New England’s corporate attorneys must have been working overtime, because the last week saw an unusual amount of deals activity—particularly in public and private stock offerings. —Citing market conditions, Elixir Pharmaceuticals pulled its IPO. The Cambridge, MA-based firm, which is developing treatments for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases, had already postponed the offering back … Continue reading “Elixir Pulls IPO, Mascoma Runs With Marathon, InnoCentive Gets an Incentive, Novartis Ups Alnylam Stake, & More Deals News”
Skyhook and Eye-Fi Hook Up to Automatically Geotag Your Photos
“Geotagging”—a geeks-only term as recently as a year ago—is moving quickly into the mainstream. And Boston’s Skyhook Wireless is doing as much as any company to make that happen. Back in February I wrote about a collaboration between Skyhook and Locr, a German photo-sharing community designed especially for pictures that have been geotagged—that is, assigned … Continue reading “Skyhook and Eye-Fi Hook Up to Automatically Geotag Your Photos”
Corindus Inc. Garners $12,800,000 Series B Financing
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=c199e169-d4c5-4ec4-a5f1-62e525f1e95f&Preview=1 Date 5/12/2008 Company Name Corindus Inc. Mailing Address 2000 Commonwealth Ave. Auburndale, MA 02466 Company Description Corindus provides intuitive robotic technologies for catheterization laboratories and radiology/special procedure suites. Allowing physicians to accurately place guide wires and precisely deploy stent systems in patient’s arteries from a comfortable workstation; enabling operators to conduct … Continue reading “Corindus Inc. Garners $12,800,000 Series B Financing”
iMove, Inc. Receives $4,250,000 New Financing
Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=6267c8b7-21cc-40a1-aea2-4fc8bdabeb7f&Preview=1 Date 5/12/2008 Company Name iMove, Inc. Mailing Address 1732 NW Quimby Portland, OR 97209 Company Description iMove is a leading provider of immersive video solutions for the military, intelligence and critical infrastructure marketplace. Based in Portland, Oregon, iMove patented technology is leading the revolution in high resolution wide area immersive video … Continue reading “iMove, Inc. Receives $4,250,000 New Financing”
MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Competition—Awards Ceremony
Seven tracks spanning aerospace, biotech, development, energy, mobile, products, and the Web. Seven winners of at least $10,000. But which emerging business team will emerge to win the $100,000 grand prize? Find out at the gala awards ceremony in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium.
MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize—Awards Show
The five finalists have been announced. Now it’s time for the showdown. Come see which team will take home the $200,000 grand prize. The evening starts with a reception celebrating all 20 semi-finalists, followed by live presentations of the five remaining contenders. There’ll be live audience voting for the fan favorite, and the overall winner … Continue reading “MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize—Awards Show”
TiECON East 2008
The annual conference of TiE, The Indus Entrepeneurs, is back with its extreme look at entrepreneurship, innovation, and global opportunity. There’s a special entrepreneur’s forum on the opening night, followed by a big day of conferencing, networking, and more. Speakers include Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame, Sycamore Networks founder Desh Deshpande, Daniel Palestrant, CEO of … Continue reading “TiECON East 2008”
Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation Day
The challenge is bringing ideas to industry. And the Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation Day is the Bay State’s annual celebration and showcase of innovations in Massachusetts research institutions that are advacing the local life sciences industry and global healthcare. “What technologies,” the program asks, “are currently emerging which have the potential to change the industry? … Continue reading “Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation Day”
Brookfield Renewable Power Comes to Bay State
Brookfield Renewable Power, a Canadian energy company, is planning to open a new US headquarters in Marlborough, MA. The firm has a $13 billion portfolio in hydroelectric plants and wind farms across North America and Brazil. It is owned by Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: [[ticker:BAM]]), based in Toronto.