Roundup, deals, VC
Retail Convergence Meets Up With Some Cash, TheStreet Takes to Geezeo, GSK Lifts a Glass to Sirtris, & More Deals News
Rebecca Zacks 4/28/08
It was a big week for Boston-area life sciences (especially for Sirtris and Resolvyx), but a couple of local Internet firms closed some sweet deals as well.
—Newly formed Boston-based e-commerce firm Retail Convergence—which owns bargain retailers Smart Bargains and RueLala—raised $25 million from New England Development, Breakaway Ventures, Mugar Enterprises, General Catalyst, and other investors.
—Personal-finance website Geezeo of Framingham, MA, sold a 13 percent stake in its operations to TheStreet.com for $1.2 million. The investment news site also has an option to buy Geezeo outright for $12 million at any point during the next year.
—Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) announced a tender offer for Cambridge, MA’s Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SIRT) of $720 million, or $22.50 per share—an 84 percent premium over Sirtris’s closing price on the day the deal was announced. Sirtris’ lead drug candidate is a proprietary formulation of resveratrol, a red-wine derivative thought to have life-extending properties.
—Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals, a Bedford, MA, firm developing treatments for inflammatory diseases based on “resolvins,” raised $25 million from investors including Biogen Idec, Flagship Ventures, CHL Medical Partners, and Atlas Venture.
—Woburn, MA’s Cambria Pharmaceuticals, which is developing treatments for neurological disorders, raised $5.4 million in a Series A round from Biogen Idec New Ventures, CommonAngels, and individual investors.
—Red Bend Software of Waltham, MA, closed a $10 million fifth round of venture financing led by Coral Capital Management and joined by Greylock Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Poalim Ventures, and Infinity. Red Bend develops systems that enable over-the-air updates of mobile-phone firmware.
—Newton, MA-based Ambient, which develops technology for using the electric power grid as a super-fast broadband network, got a $3 million jolt of new financing from Vicis Capital Master Fund.
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