Recent posts and comments

• ATV Associate Becomes Samsung VP

  Gavin Kim, the young Advanced Technology Ventures associate who last November helped launch VentureNetwork.VC, a members only, business-oriented social networking website focused on the venture capital/private equity world, will be... Read more »

• Friday Funding Flurry: OwnerIQ, Sciformix, and Optaros Raise New Rounds

  We usually get deluged with funding news on Mondays —but a small rash of venture capital rounds were announced (in one form or another) this morning, so we thought we’d wrap... Read more »

• Metcalfe on Next Steps for GreenFuel: Series C and Partnership Deals Could Be Just Around Corner

  With a new CEO (almost) in place, two potential term sheets on the way for a long-sought new round of financing, and another pair of partnership deals in the works, Cambridge,... Read more »

• Icahn Nominee Concedes Defeat at Biogen Idec Annual Meeting

  [Updated below.] In a major vote of confidence for current management under CEO James Mullen, shareholders at Biogen Idec’s annual meeting this morning have evidently rejected the slate of... Read more »

• Icahn Nominee to Biogen Idec Board Pledges to Work With Current Management to Restore Research Operations to Past Greatness

  With a potentially momentous shareholder vote at hand, a top Carl Icahn strategist says he and others nominated by the investor for Biogen Idec’s board would not try to oust CEO... Read more »

• GreenFuel Announces CEO: One Step Left in Metcalfe’s Seven-Step Recovery Plan—Money

  GreenFuel Technologies, the algae farming startup headed by Polaris Venture Partners (a major investor in the company) general partner Bob Metcalfe on an interim basis since last June, finally got its... Read more »

• IRobot Wins $3.3M ChemBot Contract

  Burlington, MA-based iRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT) announced today that it has received a $3.3 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office to develop... Read more »

• Xconomy Launches in Seattle

  Good morning Boston. Good morning Seattle. And good morning world. Today marks the public debut of the Xconomy network, as we launch both a Seattle website that will serve as a... Read more »

• Varolii Shelves IPO: Seattle Software Maker Founded by MIT Grads Has Boston Operations… and Shareholders

  Seattle software maker Varolii, which makes tools that help businesses communicate over multiple channels—voice, SMS, Web, fax, pager, e-mail—said on Friday it would not proceed with its IPO plans... Read more »

• Will “Motley Crew” Band of Financiers Drive Celts to Banner 17?

  I love hoops. Bill Aulet of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, no slouch himself on the hardwood, calls me “Danger.” I like to think it’s because whenever I go up for the... Read more »

• Liberal VCs, (More) Conservative CEOs: A Who’s Who of Presidential Campaign Donors in the Boston Innovation Community

  Leading partners from top Boston venture firms have given more than three times as much money to Democratic presidential candidates (3.3 times as much to be more precise) as they have... Read more »

• $9M Second Round for First Coverage

  First Coverage, a Toronto provider of Web-based financial information management solutions with U.S. headquarters in Boston, has raised $9 million in Series B funding, the company announced today. Waltham, MA-based... Read more »

• Hexcel Lands $4-5B Airbus Contract

  Stamford, CT-based Hexcel (NYSE: HXL) announced today that it has landed a multi-year contract to supply carbon fiber composite materials for Airbus’s planned A350 XWB long-range planes. The award, which... Read more »

• Take the Xconomy Reader Survey, Please

  Xconomy is growing fast—so far, much faster than we foresaw when we launched less than a year ago. We deeply appreciate all of the visits to our site from our knowledgeable... Read more »

• MIT Thinkers Weigh in on the Most Important Advances About to Change the World

  Think helper robots anyone can afford. Or garden and household waste that powers your home, personalized digital fabrication, and well, not living forever, but for a lot longer, thanks to tissue-regeneration... Read more »

• ZoomInfo Ad Targeting Spinoff Launches in SF

  A few months ago, when we zoomed in on ZoomInfo, the Waltham, MA-based business database company was beta testing an ad-targeting service designed to quickly identify website visitors and serve... Read more »

• Wilson TurboPower Boosted by 500K

  Wilson TurboPower has received $500,000 from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative to develop its MIT-invented industrial heat exchanger, which is expected to lower the cost of electricity generation from biomass and fuel... Read more »

• Commenting on: The Next Big Thing in Energy Innovation and Investing? Let’s Talk Water

  Robert said: Bill, you definitely are on target with this post. But is water the new oil? Should it be something we... Read more »

• 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... Read more »

• 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... Read more »