Acquisitions and big venture financings made up the deals news for New England-area software and IT companies in the past week.

—Retroficiency, a Boston-based maker of energy efficiency software, raised $3.3 million in a funding round from Point Judith Capital and acquired the energy efficiency division of one of the venture firm’s other portfolio companies, Nexamp. Retroficiency’s technology allows customers like commercial property owners to evaluate the cost-energy impact of making building upgrades.

—Andover, MA-based Pixtronix, a maker of low-power displays, was acquired by San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM). Exact details weren’t disclosed, but Scott Kirsner’s Innovation Economy blog reported Qualcomm paid somewhere in the range of $175-200 million, according to sources close to the deal.

—Southborough, MA-based uTest raised $17 million in a Series D financing, to put toward expanding its testing platform for software applications. The deal was led by QuestMark Partners, and included existing uTest investors Scale Venture Partners, Longworth Venture Partners, Egan-Managed Capital, and Mesco.

—More seed-stage deals could come from BzzAgent founder Dave Balter, who joined Boston Seed Capital as a venture advisor. The one-year-old, early-stage investment firm is run by Nicole Stata, founder and former CEO of human-resources software firm Deploy Solutions.

—West Coast venture firm Andreessen Horowitz led a $33.5 million investment in Waltham, MA-based Actifio, a maker of data management software products for big companies. Previous investors North Bridge Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, and Advanced Technology Ventures were also part of the deal.

—Bedford, MA-based Progress Software, a company focused on helping organizations become more “operationally responsive,” said it has acquired decision management software maker Corticon, based in Redwood City, CA. And just this week, Progress announced the hire of its new CEO, Jay Bhatt.

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It was a week of beginnings and endings—and fundings—in San Diego’s life sciences sector. There’s a beginning to our roundup as well, and you are there now.

—San Diego’s Ambit Biosciences named Michael Martino as CEO. Martino spent the previous 30 years overseeing new product launches, drug development, funding, and other business activities at CareFusion, Arzeda, and Sonus Pharmaceuticals. Ambit has been working with Astellas Pharma to develop its lead drug candidate, quizartinib, for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.

—Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: GPRO), the San Diego diagnostics company, said Henry “Hank” Nordhoff is retiring. Nordhoff served as Gen-Probe CEO from 1994 to 2009, when Carl Hull was named as chief executive. Nordhoff plans to retire from the board, where he has served for the past 17 years, at the end of December.

—San Diego-based Swarmology, a startup providing social media analytics for healthcare clients, raised initial funding of $1.2 million, mostly from the San Diego chapter of the Tech Coast Angels. Swarmology CEO Malcolm Bohm told me the company’s Web-based technology mines  online comments posted on a particular health topic and provide a social media marketing strategy.

—In his BioBeat column this week, Luke said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel delivered a brutally honest message that a lot of people attending the Personalized Medicine Conference at Harvard Medical School needed to hear. First and foremost, the industry needs to focus on reducing healthcare costs. And for personalized medicine to work, Emanuel proposed a 1-100-0 plan—treatment that is truly tailored for a single individual, almost 100 percent effective, and with almost no side effects.

—As part of a shelf registration, San Diego’s Cadence Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CADX) priced a public offering of 19 million shares at $3.75 per share. After deducting costs related to the offering itself, Cadence estimated its share of the proceeds would be about $67.4 million. The company said it needed the funding to help pay for the commercialization of its first medication, an intravenous formulation of the pain-killer acetaminophen.

—San Diego-based Adventrx Pharmaceuticals (NYSE Amex: ANX) said it raised about $17 million in gross proceeds after closing its public offering of nearly 21.3 million shares of its common stock and warrants exercisable for as much as 10.6 million additional shares. The company said it plans to use net proceeds of $15.7 million to fund late-stage clinical trials of two drug candidates, ANX-514 and ANX-188, and for general corporate purposes.

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It’s been a quieter deals news week around New England, but Web software and drug developers have been reporting new financings and acquisitions.

—Collabor, a Maynard, MA-based maker of collaboration software for businesses, is working on raising its first outside funding round from a group of area angel investors, according to CEO and founder Sandeep Kaujalgi. The five-year-old startup has nabbed customers like Capital One and Nokia.

—Cambridge, MA-based Shareaholic announced it had taken in $1.9 million in seed funding to expand its team and the publisher network for its plug-in enables consumers to share Internet content with friends. The money came from angel investors Dave McClure, Dharmesh Shah (also an Xconomy investor), David Cancel, Brian Shin, Roy Rodenstein, Nicole Stata, Ed Roberts, Steve Woit (Xconomy founding publisher and board member), Jonathan Kraft, and TJ Mahoney, as well as NextView Ventures and General Catalyst Partners.

—Avaxia Biologics of Lexington, MA, raised $2.2 million in Series A funding, led by Cherrystone Angels in Providence, RI, with participation from Boston Harbor Angels and undisclosed individual investors. The startup is developing a cow-derived treatment for diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease.

—RapidBuyr, a Lexington-based daily deals site focuses on discounts for business-to-business products and services, announced it had acquired Los Angeles-based weekly deals site BizDeals.com.

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Some sizable tech company financings announced in the past day or so. These are mid-stage or growth-stage companies, not early-stage startups:

—TwinStrata, a Natick, MA-based data storage and backup company, closed its Series B round at $8 million, led by Avalon Ventures. Xconomy reported on this round in progress back in August. TwinStrata is led by CEO Nicos Vekiarides. It has the distinction of being one of Boston’s “10 boring tech companies that are actually interesting,” a list I compiled last March.

—Black Duck Software, the Waltham, MA-based open source software development company, has raised $12 million led by new investor Split Rock Partners. Its existing investors include General Catalyst Partners, Volition Capital, Flagship Ventures, Focus Ventures, Intel Capital, SAP Ventures, and Red Hat. Black Duck started in 2002 and says it has been cash-flow positive since 2009 (you can read an Xconomy profile from back then here).

—Care.com, the Waltham, MA-based online portal for finding family caregivers, has raised $25 million from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Matrix Partners, and Trinity Ventures. The five-year-old company is led by CEO Sheila Lirio Marcelo, and it raised a $20 million round a year ago.

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Bedford, MA-based VideoIQ, a maker of video surveillance technology, announced today that it has pinned down $7.5 million in Series C funding, from Atlas Venture, Cisco, Matrix Partners and Tenaya Capital. The company reported $6 million in funding earlier this year in an SEC filing. It said today that the new funding will go to fueling growth and product development.

VideoIQ also announced it has hired Ed Bednarcik as its new president and CEO. He was previously CEO of Wright Line, a company focused on 911 public safety and data center technology. Before that, Bednarcik was an early employee of A123 Systems (NASDAQ: AONE).

VideoIQ’s technology is designed to store video surveillance footage for months of continuous recording, and offers HD viewing and analytics capabilities to capture more relevant information for its customers.

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Several San Diego life sciences companies raised money in the past few weeks, based on Form D notifications that companies are required to file with government regulators within 15 days after the first sale of securities in such offerings. The filings do not list the investors, however. Here’s a quick rundown of what I found:

—San Diego-based Biomatrica, which has developed technology that “shrink wraps” biological samples to protect them from degradation, has raised slightly more than $3 million, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company, which Luke profiled in 2009, plans to raise a total $3.3 million in equity and rights. Dow Jones VentureWire reports the company previously raised $1.2 million toward a $5 million equity round, with another $298,000 in rights and securities. The company’s past investors include In-Q-Tel, Mesa Verde Venture Partners, and existing angel investors.

—Celladon, a San Diego startup developing gene therapy treatments for heart attacks and other serious cardiovascular events, has landed $250,000 in debt and securities, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company, which raised $400,000 in July, has received close to $60 million from investors that include Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Venrock. Luke reported last year that a high dose of Celladon’s gene therapy offered a 50 percent lower risk of heart failure when compared with a placebo.

—San Diego’s Abrexa Pharmaceuticals raised $500,000 in a combination of debt, rights, and equity, according to a regulatory filing. Domain Associates’ partner Eckhard Weber is identified as both an executive and director of the startup, but Weber did not respond yesterday to an e-mail query about the company. It also is not listed as a portfolio company on Domain’s website.

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It may be a short week around here, but New England has already seen a crop of acquisitions in the Web, enterprise software, and cleantech spaces, along with some startup financing news.

—Despite announcing deep cuts to its global R&D operation earlier this year, Pfizer signed a 10-year lease with MIT for more than 180,000 square feet in a new building under construction in Cambridge, MA’s Kendall Square. The space makes room for another 400 Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) employees and is expected to be complete by fourth quarter 2013.

—Wind Power Holdings, the Barre, VT-based parent company of wind turbine developer Northern Power Systems, inked a $10.1 million Series C investment. In January of this year, the company raised $12.7 million in equity-based funding.

—Framingham, MA-based online party planning platform Punchbowl raised $578,500 in equity financing from 14 investors. The SEC document reporting the fund raise reveals that Punchbowl has dropped Software from its name.

—Waltham, MA-based Harvest Power, a waste-to-energy cleantech startup, acquired Delaware-based soil and mulch manufacturer Coastal Supply for an undisclosed sum.

—Goby, the Boston-based travel and local search startup that’s been focusing more on mobile applications lately, was acquired for an undisclosed sum by Sunnyvale, CA-based location services firm TeleNav (NASDAQ: TNAV). Goby has raised about $7.5 million from investors such as Kepha Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners.

—PTC, a Needham, MA-based product development software firm, announced its acquisition of 4CS, an Illinois-based maker of technology for warranty and service management. PTC (NASDAQ: PMTC) did not reveal how much it paid for 4CS, but said the acquisition is expected to be neutral to its GAAP and non-GAAP financial results in fiscal years 2011 and 2012.

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San Diego-based Genomatica, an industrial biotech that uses engineered microorganisms to produce high-value chemicals in fermentation tanks, has submitted plans for an initial public offering, according to a regulatory filing today. The underwriters include Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Securities, and Jefferies & Company, and the company hopes to someday trade under the ticker symbol GENO.

All shares to be sold in the IPO will be offered by Genomatica. The company did not specify the number of shares to be offered, or the price range, but CEO Christophe Schilling indicated in June that Genomatica was looking to raise about $150 million.

The San Diego company, which was founded in 1998, has emerged in recent years as a pioneer in industrial biotechnology. Using a proprietary software technology to model metabolic processes, the company has successfully demonstrated its ability to create a blueprint for genetically engineering microorganisms such as E. coli bacteria to consume renewable resources (sugars) and produce butanediol, or BDO—and more recently—butadiene. Before now, such chemicals were produced by the petrochemical industry, using methane and other fossil fuels as the raw material in CO2-spewing processes.

BDO is used to make a resilient plastic material, which in turn is the raw material for making spandex clothing, running shoes, and dashboards, among other things. In its IPO filing, Genomatica says global demand for BDO in 2009 was 2.8 billion pounds, which equates to a market size of approximately $4 billion (based on prices in June 2011). The company estimates that the global market for butadiene, a basic chemical used in a variety of other everyday products such as tires, carpeting and latex products, is even bigger—about 20 billion pounds and $40 billion. The company says it has identified about 20 other intermediate chemical products for its future product pipeline.

Because of the industrial-scale production required, Genomatica has been forging partnerships with industry partners, such as Tate & Lyle in the United States and Novamont in Europe.

Genomatica was founded in 1998, and operated as a research and development group with specialized expertise in using its proprietary software technology to model metabolic processes. The company funded its operations mostly through collaborative research agreements, grants, and by licensing its software to other researchers. In 2007, the company seemed to re-invent itself—or at least to focus more directly on its current commercialization strategy.

The company says it has raised $84.2 million in total proceeds from the issuance of convertible preferred stock. It’s biggest existing shareholders include Fort Worth, TX-based TPG Biotechnology Partners, which holds 19.1 percent; Menlo Park, CA-based Mohr Davidow Ventures, 17.3 percent; San Bruno, CA-based VantagePoint Venture Partners, 12.6 percent; Palo Alto, CA-based Alloy Ventures, 10.4 percent; and Batios Holdings of the British Virgin Islands, 7.4 percent.

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TwinStrata, a Natick, MA-based provider of cloud data storage for businesses, has pinned down $5.7 million of an equity offering that could hit $8.7 million, an SEC filing shows. The funding came from 27 investors, according to the document, which lists Braden Bohrmann and Rich Levandov of Avalon Ventures as TwinStrata directors. Levandov will be participating in an Xconomy chat this September on cloud and consumer trends in Internet startups and innovation.

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This week was dominated by financing news from younger, privately held New England drug developers and diagnostics and devices firms.

—Waltham, MA-based Proteon Therapeutics inked a $15.2 million equity- and options-based investment. The firm is developing drugs for kidney and vascular diseases.

—Fluidnet, an Amesbury, MA-based developer of electronic infusion pumps for administering IV fluids, raised $19.8 million of an equity offering that could total $25 million.

—Sudbury, MA- and Shreveport, LA-based Embera NeuroTherapeutics took in $4.5 million in Series A funding to put toward advancing its treatment for addictions, EMB-001, through a safety study and subsequent clinical trials. The money came from existing backers Louisiana Ventures, Louisiana Fund I, and Themelios Ventures, as well as other private investors.

—Lexington, MA-based lung disease drug developer Pulmatrix announced it raised $14 million in Series B financing and revealed its plans to advance its lead compound, PUR118, as a new treatment for cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The funding came from all of Pulmatrix’s existing investors, which includes Polaris Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, and Novartis Venture Fund.

—Healthcare companies in Massachusetts collectively raised $134 million in July, according to data from CB Insights‘ FundingFlash, a daily roundup of companies receiving venture capital, angel investment, and growth equity funding. Cambridge, MA-based obesity drug developer Zafgen led the way last month with $33 million.

—SEC documents revealed a couple of life sciences-related financings in the middle of this week: Cambridge-based Daktari Diagnostics ($1.17 million in debt-based funding), and Lebanon, NH-based PharmaSecure ($2.5 million of a $6 million equity offering). The companies are working on HIV diagnostic systems and medicine counterfeiting prevention, respectively.

—Xconomy Seattle and national biotech editor Luke Timmerman profiled Tony Coles as part of our new Xconomist of the Week feature. Coles, now the CEO of South San Francisco-based Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ONXX), spent his residency training in cardiology and internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He got his master’s degree in public health from Harvard University and held a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

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Companies in the health IT, electronics, and biotech spaces have all been making deals headlines this week.

—Wilmington, MA-based Lilliputian Systems, a maker of tiny fuel cells for powering cell phones and laptops, took in $11.1 million of a targeted $21 million equity- and rights-based financing from 14 investors, according to an SEC filing.

—Vigix, a Cambridge, MA-based maker of kiosks for dispensing goods from loyalty cards to iPods, nabbed a $1.5 million Series A-1 round, led by Waltham, MA-based Still River Funds.

—South San Francisco-based Genentech paid Cambridge-based Forma Therapeutics for the exclusive worldwide rights to a small-molecule drug program designed to starve tumors by blocking a molecular target involved in cancer cell metabolism. Genentech will also provide support for research, cover all the development costs, and agree to make milestone payments if the drug hits certain development goals. The kicker is that if the Forma drug reaches its development goals, Genentech can acquire the full rights to it, making an asset buyout payment that would be distributed to Forma’s investors, plus further milestone payments to Forma if certain sales goals are met, though Forma would miss out on the royalty stream.

—Nimbus Discovery, a Cambridge-based startup focused on computer-aided drug discovery, raised $24 million in Series A funding. The money came from Microsoft’s Bill Gates (a Nimbus seed investor), as well as lead investors Atlas Venture, SR One, and Lilly Ventures.

—-MC10, a Cambridge-based developer of products like biomedical sensors and consumer electronics that can bend and stretch, pinned down $12.5 million in funding. The Series B deal was led by new investor Braemar Energy Ventures, with participation from previous investors North Bridge Venture Partners, Osage University Partners, and Terawatt Ventures.

—InfraReDx,a Burlington, MA-based developer of medical devices, raised $24.1 million in funding from existing investors to help support clinical trials for expanded applications of its new coronary imaging system.

—Beverly, MA-based health IT firm Eliza snagged an investment from Parthenon Capital Partners, marking the company’s first institutional financing round. The funding will go toward providing partial liquidity to certain shareholders and to funding future growth initiatives for Eliza, which offers technology for communicating healthcare information to patients.

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New England software and drug developers inked partnerships, financings, and acquisitions deals this week.

—Admantx, a Hartford, CT-based provider of semantic-based online advertising technology, pulled in $2.8 million from Atlante Ventures Mezzogiorno, the venture capital fund of the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo. Admantx, which was spun off last year from the semantic software firm Expert System, said it will put the first-round funding toward sales and marketing.

—Estonia- and Cambridge, MA-based GrabCAD, a current member of the TechStars Boston class, took in $1.1 million in seed funding from Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture, NextView Ventures, and angel investors. GrabCAD offers an online marketplace for connecting mechanical design engineers with manufacturing and product development companies.

—Lexington, MA-based Wikets, a new social Web startup founded by BladeLogic veterans, pinned down $1.5 million in equity-based funding from nine investors.

—Cambridge,MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals paid $60 million upfront for a worldwide license to hepatitis C drug candidates from South San Francisco-based Alios Biopharma. Vertex (NASDAQ: VRTX) looks to put the drugs into an entirely oral hepatitis C drug regimen, and could pay $715 million more in development milestones and $750 million more in sales milestones.

—Synageva BioPharma of Lexington, MA, merged with Durham, NC-based Trimeris (NASDAQ: TRMS) in an all-stock transaction. The new publicly traded company, called Synageva BioPharma, will focus on developing novel therapeutics for patients with rare diseases.

—AisleBuyer, a Boston-based developer of apps for mobile-based checkouts at stores, raised $7.5 million in a Series E deal, from Old Willow Partners. The money will go to product development, new hires, and customer acquisition.

—Waltham, MA-based PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI, a provider of life sciences tools and products, picked up London-based X-ray detection technology developer Dexela for an undisclosed sum.

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Financing news kept flowing this week from New England startups developing software, medical device, drug, and cleantech products.

—Ziptr, a Burlington, MA-based maker of software focused on business privacy and compliance, pinned down $6.8 million in equity financing from 26 investors.

—Lumicell Diagnostics, a portfolio company of Waltham, MA-based Kodiak Venture Partners that’s developing a cancer diagnostic device, added $2.7 million in equity-based funding.

—Bedford, MA-based Hologic (NASDAQ: HOLX), a developer of medical imaging and diagnostic devices, paid $135 million to acquire Chinese medical products distributor TCT International, which distributes Hologic’s ThinPrep Pap Test.

—General Compression, a Newton, MA-based energy storage technology company, raised a $20.4 million equity financing round from four investors. Its previous backers include Duke Energy, U.S. Renewables Group, and Northwater Intellectual Property Fund.

—Constellation Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, MA, added another $15 million in Series B extensions from existing investors, including Third Rock Ventures, The Column Group, Venrock Associates, SR One, and Altitude Life Science Ventures. That brings the round to $37 million for Constellation, a developer of drugs for treating cancer, inflammatory and immunologic disorders, and other diseases.

—Concord, MA-based PolyRemedy nabbed $20 million in Series C financing to put towards commercializing its customized wound-healing system. New investor Delphi Ventures led the round, which also included previous PolyRemedy investors MedVenture Associates, Advanced Technology Ventures, and Flybridge Capital Partners. The money will go towards app development, manufacturing, and sales and marketing.

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New money and new product innovations seemed to be the intertwining themes of San Diego’s life sciences news over the past week. See if you agree.

—San Diego’s Ambit Biosciences intends to raise as much as $86.3 million in an IPO, according to a regulatory filing last week. Ambit, which has been developing a drug to treat acute myeloid leukemia, hopes to ride on the coattails of 18 initial public offerings in October, the most in years.

—Bill Davenhall, ESRI‘s global marketing manager for health and human services, talked with me about his 2009 TEDMED talk about the importance of creating a medical place history. One year later, ESRI developed a way to create your own medical place history—an app that is now available for free at the Apple iStore.

—San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARNA) said initial results from an additional test of its experimental diet pill show that the drug meets federal requirements for prescription weight-loss treatments. The study essentially showed that overweight patients who also have Type 2 diabetes reached all three goals of a clinical trial. Arena will now take this information to its next meeting with the FDA, in hopes that it can persuade regulators to approve the drug for sale. The drug’s initial application was turned down last month.

—San Diego-based Optimer Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: OPTR) said it halted a study of an experimental antibiotic for traveler’s diarrhea, after a higher-than-expected rate of skin rashes. Optimer said the drug candidate is in a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones, which are known to sometimes cause rashes.

—The non-profit West Wireless Health Institute said it has developed its first engineering prototype-a wireless fetal and maternal monitoring device called “Sense4Baby.”

—Shareholders of San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LGND) didn’t show much reaction after the company said its board approved a 1-for-6 reverse stock split, which is expected to take effect by the end of this month.

—Federal grants to fund therapeutic discoveries under the Affordable Care Act began arriving at nearly 3,000 biotechs across the country over the past week. Keith Darce at The San Diego Union-Tribune published a complete list of 184 biotechs in San Diego County that are getting a total of almost $67.1 million. The biggest beneficiary is Ligand Pharmaceuticals, which is getting a $1.9 million grant.

—Thoratec (NASDAQ: THOR) of Pleasanton, CA, sold its International Technidyne Corp. subsidiary for $55 million to the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which merged it with San Diego’s Nexus Dx. The San Diego startup is focused on point of care blood diagnostic testing.

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We saw mostly funding news for San Diego’s life sciences community over the past week, and it was light fare. Get our latest roundup here, and enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.

—Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Cambridge, MA, and operates a research facility in San Diego, said its experimental drug for hepatitis C cured 75 percent of the patients in the last stage of clinical testing required for FDA approval. Luke detailed the results from a pivotal study of 1,095 patients.

—Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker: ANDS]]), the San Diego biotech developing a drug to treat hepatitis C, said it has hired an adviser to explore “strategic alternatives” for the company. Such alternatives range from a potential sale of the company or selling or licensing its experimental hepatitis C drug, according to a regulatory filing. Anadys also said it entered into agreements with certain institutional investors to raise about $12.5 million.

—La Jolla Pharmaceutical, which now trades on the over-the-counter bulletin board, said it plans to raise as much as $16.3 million as it seeks to revive its fortunes. The San Diego Union-Tribune said the San Diego biotech found institutional investors to commit up to $6 million toward efforts to restart its business.

—Cyntellect, a San Diego-based provider of biotech research instruments, raised an additional $9 million in equity, debt, and rights as part of a $16 million round the company raised last year. Cyntellect’s instruments are designed to analyze, purify, and grow cells for life sciences research.

—San Diego’s newest non-profit biotech group, the San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange, organized a presentation and discussion on the fine art of grantsmanship—apply for and winning federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. The tips they offered included a Top 10 list of dos and don’ts from Scott Struthers, the founder and chief scientist at San Diego-based Crinetics Pharmaceuticals.

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A number of biotechs and medical device companies in the San Diego area have disclosed funding deals in recent weeks. As I noted last month, San Diego-based ProActa raised about $1.1 million to continue its anti-cancer drug development work. I found some more deals while reviewing filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission:

—Auspex Pharmaceuticals of Vista, CA, continues to raise modest amounts of funding in its quest to develop deuterium-based analogs of clinically validated drugs in multiple therapeutic areas. The company says its technology replaces metabolically-sensitive hydrogen atoms with “heavy hydrogen,” a non-radioactive isotope, to create novel therapeutics with “very attractive product profiles.” After raising $3 million in August, a recent SEC filing shows that Auspex has returned to raise $2 million from promissory notes and warrants that can be converted into shares of preferred stock. Auspex, which was founded in 2001, raised almost $13.9 million in a Series B venture round from Thomas, McNerney & Partners, CMEA Ventures, and Costa Verde Capital. The concept is similar to an idea being pursued by Lexington, MA-based Concert Pharmaceuticals.

—Aethlon Medical (OTCBB: AEMD) has raised $600,000 from an unnamed investor, according to a recent SEC filing. The investor provided $300,000 in cash and a $300,000 loan to acquire 660,000 shares of Aethlon’s common stock. The San Diego-based company has been developing a blood purification device, the Hemopurifier, as a broad-spectrum therapy against infectious viral pathogens. In October, Aethlon formed a subsidiary, Exosome Sciences. The company says Exosome Sciences will run tests to see if the Hemopurifier also is effective in capturing exosomes that are secreted by solid tumors, lymphomas, and leukemias to suppress the patient’s immune response.

—Tocagen, a San Diego biotech developing gene therapy treatments for terminally ill cancer patients, has raised $3 million by issuing almost 1.6 million shares of preferred stock priced at $1.90 a share, according to a regulatory filing. Tocagen says on its website that its drug development efforts are focused on two deadly types of cancers, glioblastoma multiforme (a type of brain tumor), and malignant melanoma (a type of skin cancer).

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If last month is any indication, 2009 is going out with a whimper when it comes to the number of dollars in new venture deals for Washington companies. Though there has been a mini-comeback of small software financings since October.

That’s according to the latest roundup figures from ChubbyBrain, a New York-based maker of tools for investors, startups, and entrepreneurs. Their stats say Washington companies raised a total of $79.4 million in November, up from about $70 million the previous month. But almost half of it was in a $35 million debt financing for Light Sciences Oncology, a Bellevue, WA-based developer of a drug-device combo treatment for cancer.  (Actually, as Luke reported, Light Sciences Oncology secured the right to a $23.3 million line of credit, and granted investors $11.8 million of options they may choose to exercise later.)

There were 10 venture financings worth a total of $44.4 million (see table below). The two biggest were Redmond’s EndoGastric Solutions ($12 million as part of a $21.5 million Series E round) and Seattle-based Redfin ($10 million Series D round led by new investor Greylock Partners).

Six of the 10 venture deals were in software and Internet, which marks a slight rise in activity in the sector over the past couple of months (in terms of number of deals, not dollars). These deals included up-and-comers Doxo and Enroute Systems, notably both Series A rounds. Of the remaining financings, two were in alternative energy (Bio Architecture Lab and Infinia), and two were in medical devices, Calibra Medical and EndoGastric. (Both of those device companies, interestingly, were co-founded by Seattle-area inventor Clif Alferness, but have actually moved their headquarters to the San Francisco Bay Area.)

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We hope to make this a regular feature in our Xconomy cities. It’s a look at small financings of private companies in tech, life sciences, and cleantech. These are deals in the roughly $100,000 to $1 million range, and they’re increasingly where the action is for local entrepreneurs, yet they’re often harder to track than the bigger deals we tend to report on.

And there were at least 12 of these smaller financings in the Northwest in October (see table below), according to ChubbyBrain, a New York-based information services company tracking VC, angel, and other investments in private companies. ChubbyBrain gets its data from regulatory filings, user submissions, and other sources, and this is the second monthly installment of “under the radar” deals in the Seattle area (you can see the previous deals for September here). The data didn’t include the investors or the stage of financing.

A few quick observations: Like the previous month, most of the financings were in Washington (7 out of 12), but a significant number (5) were in Oregon. Most were equity deals (7), with the rest (5) being debt financings. The majority of financings (9) were in software, Internet, or tech, while a much smaller number (3) were in life sciences and healthcare, and no cleantech or energy deals made the list.

If nothing else, these lists are a cool way to hear about emerging startups we otherwise wouldn’t know about. For example, I’ve heard of Teranode, Nearlyweds, and 1000Museums before, but Zapproved and Intellisist are completely new to me.

Here are the 12 “under the radar” deals from last month:

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In the past week, the Northwest has seen its share of debt financings in medical devices and bio-IT, small funding deals and partnerships in Internet software, and mounting interest in an impending IPO.

—Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) rolled out a new mobile payments service that lets applications developers and distributors tap into the e-commerce giant’s one-click checkout system on mobile devices. As part of the rollout, Amazon has formed partnerships with mobile content distributors like Kansas City, MO-based Handmark, which sells games, apps, ringtones, and the like. Financial terms were not given.

—Seattle’s Theraclone Sciences formed a partnership with Tokyo-based Zenyaku Kogyo, worth up to $18 million over time, to discover antibodies that could protect millions of people in a flu pandemic, as Luke reported. Under the deal’s terms, Theraclone has given Zenyaku an option for exclusive rights to new flu antibodies in certain Asia-Pacific countries, while Theraclone gets an undisclosed amount of upfront cash and royalties on future product sales in Zenyaku’s territories.

—Seattle-based Omeros, the developer of anti-inflammatory treatments and other biotech therapies, is on the docket to go public this week and raise more than $80 million, as Luke reported. The company is also defending itself against accusations from its former chief financial officer that it filed false records with the National Institutes of Health and then wrongfully terminated him after he reported it to the board’s audit committee under the company’s whistleblower policy.

—Seattle-based Teranode raised $900,000 in debt financing, as Luke reported. The investors weren’t disclosed, although Bellevue, WA-based Ignition Partners has invested in the past. Teranode, a maker of software to organize life sciences labs, was founded in 2002 out of the University of Washington.

—Seattle-based Founder’s Co-op, a seed-stage investment organization, has backed two local Internet startups, Nearlyweds and BigDoor Media. Financial details of the deals were not announced, but Founder’s Co-op says it typically invests $250,000 or less in its portfolio companies.

—Redmond, WA-based Spiration raised $7 million in debt financing out of a $10 million offering, as Luke reported. The financing came from the company’s partner in Europe and Japan, Olympus Medical Systems. Spiration, which makes an implantable device to treat deadly lung diseases like emphysema and chronic bronchitis, has raised about $97 million since its founding in 1999.

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Plans by former Qualcomm spinout Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP) to raise more than $1.3 billion in debt and loans set off market speculation about potential mergers, although the company says it just plans to retire a credit line and maybe expand its wireless network.

Leap disclosed its capital-raising plans late yesterday in a pair of announcements, triggering an after-hours decline in the price of its shares. In its first statement, the pay-as-you-go mobile phone company said it intends to sell 6.1 million shares of its common stock, which would raise almost $240 million at Leap’s current share price. Leap, which has just over 70 million shares outstanding, says it plans to use the capital for general corporate purposes, including network expansion and acquisitions.

In a subsequent release, Leap says its Cricket Communications subsidiary plans to arrange $1.1 billion in loans. Leap says the net proceeds from its debt offering will be used to retire existing debt, and any remaining proceeds will be used to expand and improve Cricket’s wireless network, acquire additional wireless spectrum, purchase other companies, and for the long-term deployment of next-generation technology.

Cricket offers flat-rate, prepaid phone service in 35 of the top 50 markets, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Washington D.C, and Seattle. The announcement renewed market speculation of a possible combination of Leap, which has about 4.3 million customers, with Dallas, TX-based Metro PCS, which has about 6 million subscribers in complementary markets.

But the reaction was not altogether positive on Wall Street, perhaps because Leap has more than $2.5 billion in existing long-term debt on its balance sheet, according to the company’s financial results for the first quarter that ended March 31st.

In after-hours trading, the price of Leap shares declined by $2.31 a share, or almost 6 percent, to $38.74 a share.

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