Recent posts and comments

• Private Equity Fundraising Dipped in Year’s First Half, But Still Strong: Venture and Mezzanine Segments Rise

  Despite a near complete shutdown of the IPO market, U.S. private equity fundraising remained reasonably strong throughout the first half of this year—185 funds brought in $133 billion, coming in... Read more »

• Perhaps Seeing a Crack in the IPO Clouds, GT Solar Expands its Offering

  GT Solar has evidently spied a few rays of sunshine on the overcast IPO market. In a filing with the SEC yesterday, the Merrimack, NH, maker of equipment for producing photovoltaic... Read more »

• VC McDermott Rocks to Cleantech

  Our latest Who Knew? list of quirky details on prominent members of the Boston-area innovation community included this one: “Chuck McDermott, general partner at RockPort Capital Partners, dropped out of Yale... Read more »

• IRobot Grand Opening Pretty Grand

  Updated with photos from the event: I missed all the speeches, sorry about that. But I still had a great time yesterday afternoon at the grand opening of iRobot’s new... Read more »

• Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Forum—Speaker Slides

  Updated: A number of information-hungry attendees of our cloud computing event came up to me during and after the event to request that we post speaker slides. Only about half the... Read more »

• What is Reed Sturtevant Up to in Microsoft’s Cambridge Development Lab?

  Back in September, we talked to former Eons chief technology officer Reed Sturtevant just before his first day on the job as the head of a special Microsoft advanced development lab... Read more »

• Notes From Xconomy’s Cloud Computing Extravaganza

  “Ask not just what the cloud can do for you, but what you can do with the cloud.” — Sim Simeonov, Polaris Venture Partners

  “My opinion is this is a land... Read more »

• How EMC Turned Around Its Asia Business

  Steve Leonard’s schedule for the next two weeks or so goes like this: Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, Bangalore, Singapore, London, Paris, London, Singapore, Australia. And for him, that’s not... Read more »

• Web Inno West: How Seattle Does Start-Up Pitches

  We’ve written several times about the Web Innovators Group meetings put on by Venrock vice president David Beisel, including this interview with Beisel himself. The monthly Web Inno get-togethers include three... Read more »

• 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 »