Power, Drugs & Money—MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Innovation Summit 2008

Clean energy. Finance. Health and medicine. With innovation in these vital sectors transforming the way people live and work around the globe, the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge is zeroing in on them for its annual summit, aptly titled Power, Drugs & Money. Keynoting the day-long extravaganza is John Kao, author of Innovation Nation (Xconomy’s … Continue reading “Power, Drugs & Money—MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge Innovation Summit 2008”

The Burgeoning Massachusetts Biofuels Industry

What’s the promise of biofuels, and what role does Massachusetts play in this aspect of the cleantech revolution? Those are some of the big questions to be pondered in the latest chapter in the Clean Perspectives series of chats and networking events, which includes state senators Michael Morrissey and Ben Downing, along with a group … Continue reading “The Burgeoning Massachusetts Biofuels Industry”

Season’s Greetings—Xconomy’s Slowing Down for the Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone—time for a well-deserved break! Your friends at Xconomy were going all out Friday evening, bringing you the breaking news about iRobot’s big victory in its legal battles with Robotic FX live from our watering hole at Bambara: we posted the final story from our barstools, sipping Xconomy green apple martinis and celebrating … Continue reading “Season’s Greetings—Xconomy’s Slowing Down for the Holidays!”

Glasshouse Plots for VMware IPO Sequel, Idera Partners With Merck, iRobot Inks Deal With Army, & More

Ho, ho, holy cow there were a lot of deals last week! In case you missed any on account of snow-shoveling, shopping, or hall-decking, here’s a recap: —Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMY]]) agreed to sell its Billerica, MA-based medical imaging division to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners for some $525 million. —Burlington, MA’s iRobot (NASDAQ: … Continue reading “Glasshouse Plots for VMware IPO Sequel, Idera Partners With Merck, iRobot Inks Deal With Army, & More”

IRobot Declares Victory in Battle of the Bots; Could Absorb Some Robotic FX Assets as Rival Dissolves

IRobot officially declared victory in its legal battles with Robotic FX this evening, as judges in Massachusetts and Alabama signed off on settlements (which we reported earlier in the day had been reached) that put Robotic FX out of business. At its discretion, the Burlington, MA-based firm can also absorb some of its former rival’s … Continue reading “IRobot Declares Victory in Battle of the Bots; Could Absorb Some Robotic FX Assets as Rival Dissolves”

Live Gamer Aims to Civilize the Gray Market for Virtual Goods

In a now-famous June 17 New York Times article entitled “The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer,” technology writer Julian Dibbell detailed the surreal existence of workers in China who spend twelve hours a night scrambling for treasure inside the massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming environment World of Warcraft. The laborers collect virtual coins from … Continue reading “Live Gamer Aims to Civilize the Gray Market for Virtual Goods”

Kayak, SideStep Will Travel Together in Rare East-Buys-West Acquisition

In one of the largest venture-backed deals of the year, discount travel search site Kayak.com, based in Norwalk, CT, has raised $196 million to purchase rival SideStep of Santa Clara, CA. While the two companies’ websites will continue to operate separately, according to a press release issued today, the combined organization will control the Web’s … Continue reading “Kayak, SideStep Will Travel Together in Rare East-Buys-West Acquisition”

Big Win Looming for IRobot as it Settles Both Cases With Robotic FX

[Updated 2:45 pm—see end of story.] IRobot’s two lawsuits against Robotic FX are being settled in favor of the Burlington, MA-based plaintiff, according to filings in U.S. District Courts in Massachusetts and Alabama. Settlements filed over the last couple of hours include judgment in favor of iRobot on all counts of the Alabama suit, and … Continue reading “Big Win Looming for IRobot as it Settles Both Cases With Robotic FX”

Avid Names Greenfield New CEO

Avid Technology, the Tewksbury, MA-based maker of industry-leading tools for video, film and audio editing and 3-D animation, announced Wednesday that interim CEO Nancy Hawthorne (who replaced former CEO David Krall in August) has been succeeded by former GXS and Peregrine Systems CEO Gary Greenfield. Avid is widely considered by investors to have flubbed its … Continue reading “Avid Names Greenfield New CEO”

Corrections in Webloyalty Lawsuit Story

It’s not fun making mistakes. On Wednesday, we published a story about a class-action lawsuit being brought against Webloyalty, Fandango, Priceline, and others. We’re proud of our work on the piece and, as always, tried hard to get the story straight, but yesterday evening several potential inaccuracies were brought to our attention. We investigated further … Continue reading “Corrections in Webloyalty Lawsuit Story”

Hobnox Offers Intelligent Music Videos for the “Empty V” Crowd

Many bands have hours of video documenting their performances and their touring adventures, but their options for getting this material out to fans aren’t very broad. There’s MTV on the professional end and MySpace on the popular end, and not much in between. But now Hobnox, a German company that has set up its U.S. … Continue reading “Hobnox Offers Intelligent Music Videos for the “Empty V” Crowd”

Altus Shares Nosedive as Agreement With Genentech Ends

Shares in Altus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:ALTU]]) plunged nearly 50 percent today after the Cambridge company announced that an exclusive option agreement with Genentech on a drug candidate for human growth hormone had expired. Altus said it had reacquired development and commercialization rights to the drug candidate, ALTU-238, which had been granted to the California company under … Continue reading “Altus Shares Nosedive as Agreement With Genentech Ends”

Idera Pharmaceuticals Inks Potential $400 Million-Plus Deal with Germany’s Merck

Idera Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:IDRA]]) has netted its third major deal in about as many years. This one, potentially worth upwards of $400 million to the Cambridge, MA-based biotech, is a collaboration with Germany’s Merck KGaA around cancer-fighting compounds that might boost the body’s ability to fight tumors. This type of immune-based therapy has pretty much been … Continue reading “Idera Pharmaceuticals Inks Potential $400 Million-Plus Deal with Germany’s Merck”

Akamai CEO Paul Sagan to Join EMC Board and Help With Mergers and Acquisitions

Akamai’s president and chief executive officer Paul Sagan will join the board of directors of EMC. In a statement issued this morning, Hopkinton, MA-based EMC billed Sagan’s presence as a great fit, both for the knowledge he brings about information technology in general, but also for his experience with Internet-based businesses and services—an area of … Continue reading “Akamai CEO Paul Sagan to Join EMC Board and Help With Mergers and Acquisitions”

A Big Drop in the Bucket for Drupal

Apparently, the days when a computer science graduate student can invent some cool Web software and raise a few million dollars to build a company around it are not over. Brand new (less than a month old) North Andover, MA, startup Acquia announced yesterday that it’s raised $7 million to market software and services in … Continue reading “A Big Drop in the Bucket for Drupal”

Harvard’s Brock Reeve Sizes up the Prospects for Stem Cells in 2008 and Beyond

2007 has been an outstanding year for stem cells—those much-ballyhooed cells with the ability to develop into numerous tissues in the body and ultimately, researchers hope, repair the damage in ailments such as Parkinson’s disease or spinal cord injury. Scientific papers have been flying fast and furious, but which of the year’s developments are the … Continue reading “Harvard’s Brock Reeve Sizes up the Prospects for Stem Cells in 2008 and Beyond”

Abiomed Device Approved

Abiomed (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ABMD]]) has gained FDA approval for a new circulatory support device, the Danvers, MA-based company announced today. The device—a console that drives various balloons and pumps used in treating heart failure—is already approved in Europe.

Elixir Sets Price Target for IPO

Elixir Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge company formed in 1999 and focused on developing drugs for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases, has set the price range of its planned initial public offering of five million shares at between $14 and $16 per share. The company, whose litany of investors includes MPM Capital, Oxford Bioscience Partners, and … Continue reading “Elixir Sets Price Target for IPO”

Biogen Idec, Vertex, and Genzyme Try Different Ways to Skin the Innovation Cat

Back in July, Bob had an intriguing conversation with Rainer Fuchs, a Biogen Idec VP on a mission to find new ways for the Cambridge, MA-based biotech giant to tap into ideas that could help fill its pipeline. Fuchs’ answer was the Biogen Idec Innovation Incubator, a quirky spin on the incubator model that doesn’t … Continue reading “Biogen Idec, Vertex, and Genzyme Try Different Ways to Skin the Innovation Cat”

Nuance Cuts Stock Offering Size

Burlington, MA-based Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NUAN]]), which sells speech and imaging software, announced in a regulatory filing that it planned to cut the number of shares being sold in its secondary public offering of its stock from 15 million to 7 million. Under its revised plan, the firm will offer 6.8 million shares, down from … Continue reading “Nuance Cuts Stock Offering Size”

Virtualization Player GlassHouse Registers for $100 Million IPO

GlassHouse Technologies of Framingham, MA, which provides data center management consulting services and Internet-based data backup services, registered Tuesday for an initial public offering that the company hopes will raise up to $100 million. The company is a player in the red-hot market for corporate server virtualization, helping customers to plan and manage virtualization projects … Continue reading “Virtualization Player GlassHouse Registers for $100 Million IPO”

Class-Action Lawsuit Unfolding in Boston Against Webloyalty, Fandango, Priceline, and Various Web Retailers Alleges Widespread “Coupon Click Fraud”

Updated and corrected, December 21, 2007. For details on the revisions, click here. It is every online shopper’s nightmare (that is, if you awake to know it has even happened). You’re at the computer buying movie tickets, flowers, or pet food and, after completing your purchase, an enticing pop-up comes on the screen offering a … Continue reading “Class-Action Lawsuit Unfolding in Boston Against Webloyalty, Fandango, Priceline, and Various Web Retailers Alleges Widespread “Coupon Click Fraud””

Plying Poop Power in Portsmouth

Hogs and dairy cows in the United States produce nearly 3 billion pounds of manure a day, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s over 1 trillion pounds per year—an unimaginable, truly Augean heap of waste. Unfortunately, farmers can’t simply divert a few rivers, as Hercules did, to wash it all away. But technology … Continue reading “Plying Poop Power in Portsmouth”

$5 Million for Inmagic

Woburn, MA-based Inmagic, which makes softwares that companies used to manage online and offline libraries, announced it had received a $5 million investment from New Jersey-based Edison Venture Fund. The deal is not your typical startup financing–Inmagic was founded in 1982 by an expert in library scientist and a technologist from MIT.

Calling New Contract a “Sustaining Bridge” to IRobot’s Future Plans, Exec Says Company Set to Deliver First Robots on January 8

Evidently things got a little festive over at iRobot (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRBT]]) late Friday evening, when the company learned that it had been awarded a contract worth up to $286 million to supply so-called “xBot” bomb-detection robots to the U.S. Army. “I think there might have been a beer or two,” said Joe Dyer, president of … Continue reading “Calling New Contract a “Sustaining Bridge” to IRobot’s Future Plans, Exec Says Company Set to Deliver First Robots on January 8″

IRobot Wins $286 Million Army Contract, Replacing Contract Previously Awarded to Robotic FX

In a dramatic turnaround that is sure to send holiday cheer echoing through its halls, Burlington, MA-based iRobot (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRBT]]) has won a multi-million-dollar contract to deliver bomb detection robots to U.S. troops; the contract was originally awarded to arch-rival Robotic FX barely two months ago. The company said in an announcement released this morning … Continue reading “IRobot Wins $286 Million Army Contract, Replacing Contract Previously Awarded to Robotic FX”

Biogen Idec-Icahn Story Likely Far From Over; History Says the Activist Investor Will Act Again

Does anyone really think Carl Icahn is done with Biogen Idec? He pushed for a sale of the company, by most reports at a price around $80 per share. But as of yesterday’s close, just three trading days after the Cambridge biotech’s announcement that it had failed to find a buyer and would remain independent, … Continue reading “Biogen Idec-Icahn Story Likely Far From Over; History Says the Activist Investor Will Act Again”

GEO2 Technologies Passes Clean-Diesel Filter Test

In Massachusetts alone, particulate-heavy diesel pollution helps cause 450 premature deaths, 700 heart attacks, 9,900 asthma attacks, and 60,000 missed work days every year, according to the Diesel Pollution Solution Coalition, a Boston-based environmental group. A bill before the state legislature would attack that problem by requiring all heavy-duty diesel vehicles owned, operated, or contracted … Continue reading “GEO2 Technologies Passes Clean-Diesel Filter Test”

Bristol-Myers Squibb Division Sold for $525M

New York-based private equity firm Avista Capital Partners seems to be on a holiday shopping spree in Massachusetts–last week it acquired two Boston Scientific business units, and today it announced it’s picking up the Billerica, MA-based medical imaging division of Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMY]]) for some $525 million. The deal is expected to close by … Continue reading “Bristol-Myers Squibb Division Sold for $525M”

The Challenge of Commercialization

The Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network sponsors a dinner and panel discussion on how companies can focus on defining customer needs while avoiding the pitfall of developing products that merely seem “cool.” Panelists include Jeffrey Bentley, CEO of CellTech Power; Michael Kuperstein, founder and CEO of Metaphor Solutions; and Edmond Walsh of specialty IP law firm Wolf, … Continue reading “The Challenge of Commercialization”

The Outlook for Technology Stocks in 2008

TIE-Boston’s Capital Markets SIG sponsors a panel with Ken Winston, technology analyst at Pioneer Investments, and Richard Lee, senior technology analyst at Westfield Capital, focusing on the major themes that will attract the interest of technology investors in 2008. Tickets $15 for TIE-Boston members. More information here.

When Startups Fail: Christopher Herot Talks Frankly About Zingdom’s Shutdown

Part of the reason high-tech entrepreneurs are attracted to Silicon Valley is the perception that it’s a place where risk-taking is encouraged. West Coast venture capital firms not only excuse failure, so this perception goes, but celebrate it: if a high-tech entrepreneur doesn’t have a couple of tanked companies on his resume, he probably wasn’t … Continue reading “When Startups Fail: Christopher Herot Talks Frankly About Zingdom’s Shutdown”

Innovation 101: Perspectives from a Humble MIT Undergrad

A couple of weeks ago, I had the great honor of attending Xconomy Forum: The Future of Innovation in New England. As I met some fantastic angel investors and shook hands with iRobot CEO Helen Greiner, I felt the strange euphoric giddiness once only reserved for Christmas mornings. What was I, a lowly and unproven … Continue reading “Innovation 101: Perspectives from a Humble MIT Undergrad”

Nuance Plans an Offering, Memsic Makes Disappointing Debut, Inverness Orders the Usual, & More

The Boston-area biz/tech news was piling up almost as fast as the snow last week, and there were a few deals we didn’t manage to plow through at the time. Here they are, along with a few of the ones we caught the first time around. —Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NUAN]]), which sells speech and imaging … Continue reading “Nuance Plans an Offering, Memsic Makes Disappointing Debut, Inverness Orders the Usual, & More”

Army Cancels Robotic FX’s $280 Million Contract; Decision Could Pave the Way for IRobot to Win Award

Less than two months after setting aside a $279.9 million contract with Illinois-based Robotic FX for delivering bomb-detection robots to U.S. troops, the U.S. Army has canceled the agreement, the Boston Globe reports. The decision apparently paves the way for the contract, which was awarded to Robotic FX in September, to go to iRobot as … Continue reading “Army Cancels Robotic FX’s $280 Million Contract; Decision Could Pave the Way for IRobot to Win Award”

Hologic Contraceptive Device Gets Nod From FDA Panel

Bedford, MA-based Hologic’s $6.2 billion union with Cytyc, completed in October, seems set to bear fruit. The newly merged company, now one of Massachusetts’ largest life sciences concerns, announced today that an FDA panel has recommended that its permanent contraception device, Adiana, be approved. The device—which offers a minimally invasive alternative to tubal ligation—is an … Continue reading “Hologic Contraceptive Device Gets Nod From FDA Panel”

BSX Sheds “Non-Strategic” Businesses for $425M

As part of a previously announced restructuring effort, Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NYSE: [[ticker:BSX]]) has agreed to sell two of its businesses to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $425 million in cash. With this deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, “We now have under agreement the … Continue reading “BSX Sheds “Non-Strategic” Businesses for $425M”

Third Rock Hires Three Partners—Says Team Complete to Implement Its Hands-On, Early-Stage Venture Model

Third Rock Ventures, the new Boston venture firm zeroed in on funding early stage, local life sciences companies, announced the hiring of three new partners yesterday. The company, which closed its $378 million fund in September, says it has now completed the core team needed to implement its somewhat unique model of providing top-tier operational … Continue reading “Third Rock Hires Three Partners—Says Team Complete to Implement Its Hands-On, Early-Stage Venture Model”

Microsoft Delivers Surprise Early Challenge to VMware

We’re all used to hearing from Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) that big software releases will come later than promised, so it was a bit of a shock yesterday when the company said its “Hyper-V” virtualization technology—a part of Windows Server 2008 originally expected early next year—is ready for evaluation now. The news took some of the … Continue reading “Microsoft Delivers Surprise Early Challenge to VMware”

All (User-Generated) Content Doesn’t Want to Be Free: A Q&A with Cambridge Startup RightsAgent About Its New Approach to Copyrighting

You know that little “CC” you see here and there on the Web, in the margins of blogs or attached to photos on Flickr? It stands for the Creative Commons license, and until now, it’s basically been a way for content creators to say, “I don’t approve of traditional copyrights, so I’m just going to … Continue reading “All (User-Generated) Content Doesn’t Want to Be Free: A Q&A with Cambridge Startup RightsAgent About Its New Approach to Copyrighting”

Modiv Media Inc. Receives $8,000,000 Series A Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=b00a2b3c-c552-4eb6-8566-a33238ad3e7f&Preview=1 Date 12/14/2007 Company Name Modiv Media Inc. Mailing Address 1250 Hancock Street Quincy, MA 02169 Company Description For brand marketers and retailers looking to influence consumers’ shopping habits and buying decisions, Modiv Media™ orchestrates relevant retail messages and improved shopping experiences at exactly the right moment in exactly the right place. … Continue reading “Modiv Media Inc. Receives $8,000,000 Series A Round”

NewsGator Gobbles Up $12 Million Financing Round; Masthead’s Extreme VC Levandov Raises the Bar on Tattoos

Denver-based NewsGator Technologies, which makes one of the leading RSS news feed aggregators as well as other products designed to allow users keep up with online information, announced today that it has closed a $12 million funding round. The financing was led by new investor Vista Ventures of Boulder, CO. But it includes existing investor … Continue reading “NewsGator Gobbles Up $12 Million Financing Round; Masthead’s Extreme VC Levandov Raises the Bar on Tattoos”

Massachusetts Spared Novartis Cuts

Novartis (NYSE: [[ticker:NVS]]) today unveiled a plan to cut some 2,500 job but—despite an ominously worded reference to to the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, which employs 1,300 people in Cambridge, MA—there will be no Massachusetts jobs lost. This according to the Boston Business Journal‘s Mark Hollmer, who writes that some 300 additional Novartis jobs … Continue reading “Massachusetts Spared Novartis Cuts”

For Logical Therapeutics It’s a New City and a New Approach to Anti-Inflammatory Drugs; For the CEO, It’s a Whole New Career

For a company so new it still has that new-car smell (literally—the firm’s slate-and-beige carpet is still very much in off-gas mode), Logical Therapeutics has made some decent distance on the road to commercializing its first product. The Waltham, MA-based biotech startup already has a drug in clinical trials—one that could ultimately address a multibillion-dollar … Continue reading “For Logical Therapeutics It’s a New City and a New Approach to Anti-Inflammatory Drugs; For the CEO, It’s a Whole New Career”

Gamers, Grog, and GAMBIT: Singapore’s Video Game Industry Looks to MIT for Innovation

All fall I’ve been trying to free up time to attend Boston PostMortem, a gathering of Boston-area video game developers held once each month at The Skellig, an Irish pub in Waltham. When it turned out that a team from MIT’s GAMBIT video game program would be presenting at PostMortem this Tuesday, I persuaded Bob … Continue reading “Gamers, Grog, and GAMBIT: Singapore’s Video Game Industry Looks to MIT for Innovation”