Boston-Area Business, Life Sciences, and Technology News Briefs
06/28/11
Beverly, MA-based Eliza, a developer of speech recognition technology for communicating healthcare information to patients, has taken in a growth investment from Parthenon Capital Partners, a Boston- and San Francisco-based private equity firm. The total of the investment was not disclosed, but it marks the first time Eliza has received institutional funding since founding in 2002. The company said that the money will go to providing partial liquidity to certain shareholders and to funding future growth initiatives. Eliza founders and senior management will still own a majority of the company.
Burlington, MA-based medical device developer InfraReDx announced today that it had raised $24.1 million in an equity offering it sold to existing investors. The money will go to ongoing and new clinical trials exploring additional applications of its LipiScan IVUS coronary imaging system, which combines near infrared light and a type of intravascular ultrasound to provide detailed images of a type of fatty plaque in the arteries. Last October InfraReDx raised $21 million to launch the system in the U.S. shortly after it had gained FDA clearance.
Cambridge, MA-based MC10, a startup focused on designing electronics that can bend and stretch with the natural world, said today it has raised $12.5 million in Series B financing led by new investor Braemar Energy Ventures. Previous investors North Bridge Venture Partners, Osage University Partners, and Terawatt Ventures also participated in the round. MC10 is working on flexible biomedical sensors and devices, consumer electronics, sports and military applications, and portable (and possibly wearable) energy-generation devices. The company was founded in 2008 based on research done at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (John Rogers) and Harvard University (George Whitesides). MC10 is led by CEO David Icke.
06/24/11
Location-based mobile giant Foursquare has raised a $50 million funding round, according to the company’s blog. Investors included Andreessen-Horowitz, Spark Capital, and previous investors O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and Union Square Ventures. The company plans to add engineers to its current staff of 70, boost its merchant offerings, and expand internationally. Although buzz put the valuation at $1 billion, TechCrunch reports it was actually a more modest (but still sky-high) $600 million.
06/22/11
Lilliputian Systems, a Wilmington, MA-based developer of fuel cells small enough to power mobile phones and laptops, has brought in $11.1 million of a potential $21 million offering of equity and options, an SEC filing shows. The money comes from 14 investors. Lilliputian raised $25 million in 2009, from Stata Venture Partners, Altira Group, Atlas Venture, Fairhaven Capital, Rockport Capital, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
06/21/11
Boston-based Kyruus, a health-IT startup whose name I cannot spell, said today it has raised a $5.5 million Series A round led by Highland Capital Partners, Venrock, and Gerson Lehrman Group. Angel investors Jonathan Bush, Ed Park, John Goldsmith, and James Golden also participated in the financing. Kyruus has developed a software platform that includes professional profiles of doctors and “big data” analytics. The software provides what Kyruus calls “a unified view of the physician” that can be searched and analyzed by healthcare deliverers, government workers, and payers. The company started in 2010 and is led by co-founders Graham Gardner and Julie Yoo (both from Generation Health). Gardner told Forbes that the goal is to become “the Bloomberg or ITA Software of physician information.” Xconomy first wrote about Kyruus back in January.
San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMLN) and its partners—Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Waltham, MA-based Alkermes (NASDAQ: ALKS)—said today that their once-weekly injectable version of exenatide (Bydureon) was cleared for sale in Europe as a treatment for diabetes. The drug’s introduction has been delayed by regulators in the U.S., who have asked for more data on the drug’s potential effect on an abnormal heart rhythm known as QT prolongation. The companies said today they expect to respond to the FDA’s questions later this year. Amylin, Lilly, and Alkermes are all counting on this drug to become a future profit driver, as it represents the first once-weekly injectable medicine for diabetes, which often requires many more needlesticks.
The U.S. Department of Energy has offered 1366 Technologies a conditional commitment for a $150 million loan guarantee, the Lexington, MA-based developer of silicon wafers for solar cells announced today.The money will go to expanding 1366′s manufacturing capabilities and building another U.S. facility for producing silicon wafers more cheaply. The company’s first facility is expected to be completed in 2013 and add 100 jobs in Massachusetts, and the second facility, whose location is yet to be determined, is expected to add 300 jobs, 1366 said.
06/15/11
Cambridge, MA-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVEO) said today it has raised another $100 million. The company sold 5.75 million shares at $17.50 apiece in an underwritten offering managed by JP Morgan Securities, Jefferies & Co., and Canaccord Genuity. Aveo, the developer of cancer drugs, said in its most recent quarterly report that it had about $233 million in cash and investments as of March 31, and enough money to operate through 2012. Aveo sold the new shares at about an 8.3 percent discount to yesterday’s closing stock price of $19.09.
06/14/11
PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI), a Waltham, MA-based maker of tools for the life sciences industry, announced today that it has bought London-based Dexela, a developer of X-ray detection technology. Financial terms of the deal weren’t revealed. The acquisition adds to Perkin’s portfolio of medical imaging technology for surgery, dental CT, cardiology, and mammography applications, the company said.
06/13/11
Boston-based AisleBuyer, a developer of mobile apps for retail checkouts, announced it has nabbed a $7.5 million Series E financing, bringing its total funding pot to $11.5 million. The money comes from Old Willow Partners, who led the startup’s $4 million round last fall, and will go to product development, new hires in engineering and sales, and adding new customers.
Henri Termeer, the former CEO of Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme, has joined the board of Verastem, a startup seeking to develop treatments against cancer stem cells. Verastem, co-founded by MIT biologists Robert Weinberg and Eric Lander, raised $16 million last November, in a round that included Longwood Founders Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cardinal Partners, and MPM Capital. “We believe that Henri’s extensive experience and expertise, gained from building Genzyme into a leading global biotechnology company, will serve as an invaluable asset for Verastem,” said chairman Christoph Westphal, in a statement.
Lexington, MA-based Synageva BioPharma, a developer of drugs for rare diseases, announced today that it will be merging with Durham, NC-based viral disease drug developer Trimeris (NASDAQ: TRMS) in an all-stock deal. The combined company will be called Synageva BioPharma and will be led by the Synageva management team. The new publicly traded company will include members of Syngeva and Trimeris on its board and will focus on developing novel therapeutics for patients with rare diseases. Synageva raised $25 million in private equity funding earlier this spring.
Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) said today it has agreed to pay $60 million upfront, as much as $715 million in development milestone payments over time, and potentially $750 million in sales milestones, to obtain a worldwide license to a couple new hepatitis C drug candidates from South San Francisco-based Alios Biopharma. The two drugs are nucleoside analogues which Vertex hopes to put into a hepatitis C cocktail regimen that is entirely oral, and would eliminate the standard interferon that causes flu-like symptoms. Vertex won FDA clearance last month for its pioneering new protease inhibitor, telaprevir (Incivek), which raises cure rates to almost 80 percent for hepatitis C patients, but which must be given in tandem with standard interferon.
Advanced Technology Ventures, a VC firm with offices in Waltham, MA, and Palo Alto, CA, has let go of several members of its investment staff below the general partner level, including Boston-area principals Christian Cortis and Andrew Friendly, according to a report from Dan Primack at Fortune. Cortis joined ATV in 2006 and focused on biotech and healthcare investments (such as Apoptos and Hydra Biosciences). Friendly started at the firm in 2007 and focused on cleantech and energy companies (such as AltaRock Energy and Solar Junction). The report says both VCs have at least tentative plans for their next jobs, but nothing has been announced yet.
06/09/11
Today Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) announced that Abbott Laboratories, New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Shire Human Genetic Therapies of Cambridge, MA, will be inaugural partners of the school’s Biomanufacturing Education and Training Center, which is under construction. The facility, which is partially funded by a Massachusetts Life Sciences Center grant, is expected to be ready in late 2012 and will be a biomanufacturing pilot plant that provides training and education for those developing drugs and researching compounds using engineered living cells.
Wikets, a new Lexington, MA-based social Web startup, has raised $1.5 million in equity-based funding from nine investors, an SEC filing shows. The company’s website says its technology enables users to exchange ideas with people they trust. Andrew Park and Vijay Manwani, both veterans of data center software provider BladeLogic (acquired by BMC Software in 2008), are listed on the SEC document as executives and directors at Wikets. Manwani is also on the advisory board for Volition Capital.
06/08/11
Estonia- and Cambridge, MA-based startup GrabCAD announced today via TechCrunch that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Boston-area investors Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture, NextView Ventures, and angel investors. GrabCAD, a member of the current class of TechStars Boston startups, has developed an online marketplace for connecting mechanical design engineers with manufacturing and product development companies. Computer-aided design (CAD) might sound like a boring niche market, but look at what billion-dollar firm Parametric Technology (NASDAQ: PMTC) has done over the past 25 years.
Hartford, CT-based Admantx, a maker of semantic-based online advertising technology, announced today that it has taken in $2.8 million in first-round funding from Atlante Ventures Mezzogiorno, the venture capital fund of the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo.The funding will go towards sales and marketing for Admantx, which was spun off last year from the semantic software firm Expert System and develops software that matches ads with user behavior and emotions.
