07/19/11

LogMeIn Pays $15M for Pachube

Woburn, MA-based LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM), a maker of software for remote access on Internet-connected devices, said today it acquired Pachube in a $15 million cash deal. Pachube (pronounced Patch Bay) offers a Web service for connecting sensor-enabled devices and sharing data among that network. The acquisition is designed to strengthen LogMeIn’s connectivity and data sharing platforms, and expand its service to devices beyond computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Affectiva Adds $5.7M to Recognize Emotions

Waltham, MA-based Affectiva, an MIT Media Lab spinout, said today it has raised $5.7 million in Series B financing led by Kantar (WPP) and Myrian Capital. The company says it will use the money to develop and market its various software products for emotion recognition. Its technology includes computer vision and machine learning algorithms that estimate emotional states based on facial expressions (via webcam), as well as biometric sensors and software that track things like excitement, engagement, and anxiety. Affectiva was founded in 2009 by MIT scientists Roz Picard and Rana el Kaliouby; the company is led by CEO Dave Berman.

07/18/11

BuyWithMe Buys Edhance for Loyalty Programs

Boston and New York-based BuyWithMe, a local deals startup, said today it has acquired Edhance, a Cambridge, MA, company that provides card-linked offers and customer loyalty programs (cash back and other deals). Terms of the acquisition weren’t given. Edhance founder Bjorn Larsen is now BuyWithMe’s vice president of loyalty and card-linked offers, so it sounds like the company integration is well under way. It’s an interesting move for BuyWithMe, as it seems everyone and their brother is trying to figure out how to promote loyalty in daily deals—that is, how to get deals customers to return to the stores where they have received discounts.

07/15/11

Demandware Files for IPO

Burlington, MA-based Demandware, a digital- and mobile-commerce software company, has filed paperwork for an IPO with a proposed maximum offering of $100 million. The offering is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. The company plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under “DWRE.” Demandware was founded in 2004 and most recently raised a $22 million Series D financing round that was completed last year. The company made a small profit in 2010 ($309,000) after years of net losses. Investors North Bridge Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners each own 33.8 percent of the company, while founder and chairman (and former CEO) Stephan Schambach owns 20.6 percent of the firm.

Polaris Funds 2 MA Companies With 6th Fund

Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners announced yesterday that it had invested in its first set of companies from its $375 million sixth fund, including two Massachusetts companies. Biff Labs is a Cambridge, MA-based stealthy startup that is focusing on structuring social data. Xtuit, which the Boston Business Journal reported as also located in the Boston area, is working on technology designed to better translate cancer drugs from animal models to human studies. Exact sizes of the individual deals were not disclosed in the Polaris press release.

07/14/11

Prospectiv Picked Up by Affinion for $30M

Affinion Group, a marketing and customer engagement company based in Stamford, CT, said today it is acquiring Wakefield, MA-based Prospectiv Direct, an online marketing firm that owns Eversave, a daily-deals website that’s active in 20 U.S. metro areas. The price of the acquisition is $30 million plus earn-outs over the next two years; the deal is expected to close sometime this quarter. Prospectiv started in 1999 and is led by CEO Jere Doyle.

Tecogen Gets $500K

Tecogen, a Waltham, MA-based provider of natural-gas-fueled, engine-driven combined heat and power systems, nabbed a $500,000 investment from Southern California Gas, SoCalGas announced today.The deal comes as a strategic addition to SoCalGas’ cleantech portfolio. Tecogen, whose systems provide electric power or cooling while heat from the engine is recovered and used at a facility, originally dates back to the 1960s. It was spun out by Thermo Electron (now Thermo Fisher Scientific) in 1987 and was sold to a group of private investors in 2000 when the Thermo Power entity it became part of dissolved, according to the Tecogen website.

07/12/11

Abine Lands $5.2M A Round

Cambridge, MA-based Abine, an online privacy startup, said today it has raised a $5.2 million Series A financing round co-led by Atlas Venture and General Catalyst Partners. Abine, founded in 2008, is led by CEO Bill Kerrigan. The company is developing online privacy and security software for consumers.

CyPhy Scores More Cash

CyPhy Works, the Boston-area robotics startup led by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, has raised an additional $1.2 million in equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. The investors in the round weren’t disclosed, but John Simon and Anita Jones are listed on the form as directors of the company, which was originally called The Droid Works. General Catalyst is an existing investor in CyPhy, which is still in stealth mode but is reportedly working on flying robots (UAVs), among other things. The startup previously raised $1.75 million early last year and won a $2.4 million government research grant in late 2009 to study UAVs.

07/11/11

TripAdvisor Buys Where I’ve Been

Newton, MA-based online travel giant TripAdvisor said today it has acquired Where I’ve Been, a social travel software company based in Chicago. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but the entire product team from Where I’ve Been will join TripAdvisor, according to the press release. Where I’ve Been is best known for its Facebook application that lets people create travel maps and share stories and photos from their trips.

Qualtré Grabs $10M

Qualtré, a Marlborough, MA-based maker of motion sensors for consumer electronics, said it took in another $10 million in funding, from Matrix Partners and Pilot House Ventures. The investment comes alongside Qualtré’s successful demonstration of what it calls the world’s first tri-axial, solid-state, silicon bulk-acoustic wave gyroscope, which can be used in tablets and smart TV remotes. In April 2010 the company announced it had raised an $8 million Series B round of funding.

Gridco Gets $12.5M for Smart Grid

Cambridge, MA-based Gridco has raised $12.5 million in equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. The form lists venture capitalists Ric Fulop of North Bridge Venture Partners and Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst Partners as the company’s directors, along with Naimish Patel, formerly of Sycamore Networks. Back in May, the Boston Globe reported that North Bridge and General Catalyst were backing Gridco, a new startup focused on smarter power management technology for utilities and industrial power consumers.

07/08/11

Medtronic to buy Salient for $500M+

Medical device giant Medtronic said it will acquire Salient Surgical Technologies in Portsmouth, NH for $525 million. Established in 1999 and formerly known as Tissuelink Medical, Salient makes devices that stop bleeding and seal wounds by allowing surgeons to apply focused radio-frequency energy and saline solution to collagen fibers in the body. Given Medtronic’s previous ownership stake in Salient, the actual price tag will be $480 million. Previous investors in Salient include Piper Jafray Ventures, Arnerich Messina & Associates, and Rivervest Venture Partners.

Avedro Adds $25M for Microwave Vision Correction

Waltham, MA-based Avedro, a medical tech startup, said yesterday it has completed a $25 million Series C financing led by SCP Vitalife and Aperture Venture Partners. Existing investors Prism VentureWorks, De Novo Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Borealis Ventures and Echelon Ventures also participated in the round. Avedro said the money will be used to expand commercial operations internationally and to seek FDA clearance in the U.S. The company is commercializing a vision-correction technique that uses a pulse of microwave energy to flatten the cornea to treat myopia and other conditions, as an alternative to Lasik surgery. The technology has its roots in research done at Dartmouth College in the early 2000s.

07/07/11

Biz Stone to Advise Spark Capital

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has signed up to assist Boston-based Spark Capital as a strategic advisor. Spark general partner Bijan Sabet announced the news on his blog today. Stone wrote in his blog last week that he is stepping back from his day-to-day role as creative director of San Francisco-based Twitter to “focus on new endeavors,” including relaunching The Obvious Corporation with Evan Williams and Jason Goldman. In his new role with Spark, Sabet says Stone “will help us think through and evaluate new investment opportunities” and “provide us with valuable insight about our current portfolio companies.” Spark has been an investor in Twitter since 2008.

Allegro Gets Another $5.4M

Maynard, MA-based Allegro Diagnostics said today that it has plumped up its Series A financing by another $5.4 million. The money comes from existing investors Kodiak Venture Partners and Catalyst Health Ventures. Allegro is developing a diagnostic platform for lung cancer that uses gene expression of normal epithelial cells in the respiratory tract to detect early signs of the disease.

07/06/11

EnerNOC Buys Energy Response

EnerNOC (NASDAQ: ENOC), the Boston-based provider of energy management and demand response technology, announced today that it has acquired Energy Response, the largest demand response provider in Australia and New Zealand. The deal helps EnerNOC expand its presence in those markets and gives Energy Response customers access to EnerNOC’s applications. The announcement did not reveal how much EnerNOC paid for the company, but noted that the purchase will likely be be dilutive to EnerNOC earnings in 2011 and 2012, and accretive beginning in 2013.

Rib-X Inks Research Agreement With Sanofi

New Haven, CT-based Rib-X Pharmaceuticals announced today that it could receive about $772 million from Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) under a new research collaboration and option for Sanofi to license novel classes of antibiotics from Rib-X’s RX-04 program for the treatment of resistant Gram-negative and resistant Gram-positive infections. Sanofi paid $10 million upfront and could pay up to $9 million in near-term research milestones, as well as other clinical and commercialization milestones and royalties. Rib-X could also receive $86 million in development and regulatory milestones and $100 million in commercial milestones for each product identified in the collaboration—Sanofi is targeting four for now, but there is no upper limit, the companies said.

07/05/11

Brightcove Moving to Boston, Looks to Hire

Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove, the digital media and video hosting firm, said today it is planning to move from One Cambridge Center to Atlantic Wharf on the Boston waterfront in April 2012. The company, which was founded in 2004, has signed a 10-year lease for an 82,000-square-foot office space at 290 Congress Street. Brightcove has 280 employees and plans to hire 120 more to fill out the new space, according to a report in the Boston Globe. The firm, perhaps best known for its video-hosting Web platform, has focused more on mobile video in the past year or two. Brightcove joins Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Heartland Robotics, and other companies that recently have moved, or are in the process of moving, from Cambridge to Boston.

07/01/11

Zynga Files for $1B IPO

Several days later than expected, San Francisco-based Zynga, the maker of blockbuster social and mobile games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars, has filed registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for an initial public offering. The company, which has opened offices in Seattle and Boston in the past year, says it hopes to raise $1 billion in the sale of common stock. The filing shows that Zynga’s largest shareholders are CEO Mark Pincus (16 percent) and venture firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (11 percent), Institutional Venture Partners (6.1 percent), Foundry Group (6.1 percent), Avalon Ventures (6.1 percent), DST Group (5.8 percent) and Union Square Ventures (5.5 percent).