Recent posts and comments

• Venter Institute Gets $8.8 Million in Stimulus Funding

  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said today it is providing $42 million to The Human Microbiome Project’s three large-scale sequencing centers. One of the centers is J. Craig Venter Institute... Read more »

• Heading Home, Leaving Lobsters for Crayfish—But First a Nod to Shaker Innovation and Some Thoughts on Boston vs. Silicon Valley

  Realizing that my visit to the USA is coming to an end in a few days, I spent the weekend hectically sightseeing around western Massachusetts and upstate New York. Even taking... Read more »

• Venture Returns Shrinking in 2008

  Venture capital funds are still more profitable for their investors than the stock markets, according to new statistics released today bythe National Venture capital Association and Thomson Reuters. But their profitability... Read more »

• IRobot to Send Army another $17.5 Million Worth of PackBots Under Its Hard-Won XBot Contract

  IRobot, (NASDAQ: IRBT) of Bedford, MA, announced today that the Army has ordered 220 of its PackBot 510 robots, worth a total of $17.5 million. The bots allow soldiers to... Read more »

• The Ongoing Story of the Route 128 Minicomputer Industry

  When we are riding a bus along Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, a man strikes up a conversation with my wife and me. “You know, I’m a ‘DEC:ie,’ that’s what we used... Read more »

• Biotech Lab Building Boom in Massachusetts

  A huge new biotech lab complex is being planned for Burlington, MA, according to a report in the Boston Globe. The proposed $2 billion development is the brainchild of... Read more »

• Philips Electronics to Move U.S. Headquarters to Massachusetts

  The giant Dutch company Philips Electronics will move its North American headquarters from New York City to Andover, MA, according to reports in Andover’s Eagle Tribune and the Boston Globe.... Read more »

• Allied Minds Backs Precision Biopsy

  Boston-based investment firm Allied Minds has founded a new medical device company, Precision Biopsy, in cooperation with the University of Colorado. The new firm is developing an “optical” biopsy needle... Read more »

• Even More Greenbacks for Evergreen Solar

  Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR) of Marlborough, MA, seems to have struck the right tune with its customers. Today the company announced yet another long-term order for its photovoltaic solar panels,... Read more »

• Massachusetts Experts Expect Job Losses in Manufacturing Sector to Level Off, Possibly Reverse

  For more than 60 years, the number of jobs in manufacturing has been on the decline in Massachusetts. But that trend is finally at an end, say the authors of a... Read more »

• Sand 9 Shrinks Electronic Clocks, Expands with $8 Million Round

  Two local venture firms, Flybridge Capital Parners and General Catalyst Partners, have joined forces with Khosla Ventures of Menlo Park, CA, and invested in Boston University spin-off Sand 9,... Read more »

• Spilling the Beans at the Taqueria

  When I visited Palo Alto earlier this year, an attorney at a big law firm specializing in intellectual property told me about a mythical eatery in Silicon Valley—Mountain View’s Taqueria La... Read more »

• From Rags to Riches—Money-Paper Maker Crane Accepts First Investment

  Could anything be a more secure investment than buying into the very paper that dollars and a bunch of other currencies are printed on? The over-200-year-old Crane & Co paper mill... Read more »

• GSI’s $360M Purchase Sets Laser Firms on Coherent Path

  Billerica, MA-based GSI Group (NASDAQ: GSIG) announced today that it will buy Excel Technology, (NASDAQ: XLTC) of East Setauket, NY, for $360 million in cash. Both companies produce lasers... Read more »

• MIT-Supported Energy Institute at Center of Abu Dhabi’s Dream City

  During the last academic year, the entire faculty of a brand new university has enrolled at MIT, immersing themselves in the institute’s culture, values, and way of doing research. They are... Read more »

• Look Who’s Coming to the Investment Dinner—Diversity Increasing in Venture Capital, But Barely

  The typical venture capital investor is still a white, middle-aged man. But the picture might be changing, albeit at a slow pace, according to a report released yesterday by Dow Jones... Read more »

• Allied Minds Finances Harvard-Northeastern Startup

  In March, we wrote about local investment firm Allied Minds, which has a strategy of investing very early in technology developed in university research labs. Today, Allied Minds announced that it... Read more »

• Looking at the World Through a Paper-Towel Tube: the Future of the Mobile Web Browser

  If you want to search the Internet, you’ll probably use your PC rather than your cell phone. But that’s likely to change in the future, I was told the other night... Read more »

• Aveksa Wants to Control Europe

  Software developer Aveksa, based in Waltham, MA, announced today that it will open a headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa in London.  Aveksa’s business is “enterprise access governance solutions”–in... Read more »

• Boston VCs Beam $13 Million into California Firm Out to Bridge Cellular and WiFi Networks

  Two Boston area venture capital firms, Castile Ventures and Battery Ventures, both of Waltham, MA, have invested big in Agito Networks, a mobile technology company based in Sunnyvale, CA,... Read more »