Roundup, deals, VC

Archemix Partners with GSK, EMC Acquires SourceLabs Assets, Satori Raises $22M to Take on Alzheimer’s, & More Boston-Area Deals News

Rebecca Zacks 1/9/09

New England tech and life sciences firms have cut many a deal since last we rounded up. Here are some of the most interesting ones.

—Cambridge, MA-based Semprus Biosciences, a spinoff from the famed Langer Lab at MIT, closed an $8 million Series A round of venture capital co-led by 5AM Venture and Pangaea Ventures. Semprus is working on long-lasting polymer surfaces to help combat the microbes that like to grow on medical devices.

—Y Combinator startup Posterous, a developer of tools for “dead simple blogging” raised $750,000 from Zimbra CEO Satish Dharmaraj, former Netscape CTO Eric Hahnof, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Kapor, and other high-profile investors.

—Archemix of Cambridge, MA, inked a deal with pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline worth $27.5 million upfront and potentially another $200 million in milestone payments for each of the seven of Archemix’s “aptamer” drugs covered by the agreement. The deal will not affect a planned reverse merger with Lexington, MA-based NitroMed (NASDAQ: NTMD), according to Archemix’s CFO.

—EMC (NYSE: EMC) acquired some of the assets and personnel of Seattle’s SourceLabs. The Hopkinton, MA-based firm plans to integrate the new assets and staff into its cloud computing business.

—Lexington, MA-based Indevus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDEV), which is developing several drugs for hormonal disorders, said it will be acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENDP) for $370 million, with another $267 million on the table if regulatory and sales goals are met.

—Forma Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based startup co-founded by scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, raised $25 million from the Novartis Option Fund, Bio*One Capital, and others. Forma aims to turn new knowledge about the genetic underpinnings of cancer into new treatments for the disease.

—Needham, MA-based ClickSquared, a provider of a software-as-a-service system for direct marketing, raised an $11 million Series B round led by JMI Equity, ABS Venture, and Flybridge Capital Partners. The round brings ClickSquared’s total raised to $46 million.

—RatePoint, ClickSquared’s Needham neighbor, also completed a Series B round, this one worth $10 million. Castile Ventures led the deal, and .406 Ventures and Prism VentureWorks joined in backing the developer of online surveys and widgets.

—Satori raised $22 million in venture capital from InterWest Partners, Prospect Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, and others. The Cambridge, MA-based startup, founded by Boston-based PureTech Ventures, which also joined the funding round, is aiming to develop small-molecule drugs that can be safely taken on a chronic basis to block the production of toxic proteins that cause Alzheimer’s disease–hopefully halting it in its early stages.

—Waltham’s Polaris Venture Partners participated in a $7.5 million Series C round for JibJab, the online parody maker that has recently begun making e-cards. Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment led the deal.