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Giga Omni Media, the company that owns news blog GigaOM and its related sites, announced today that it has raised $4.5 million in additional funding.

The last few months have been busy for Om Malik’s fledgling media empire. He acquired mobile blog jkOnTheRun in July, followed by TheAppleBlog just a few weeks ago. He also promoted chief operating officer Paul Walborsky to chief executive, and announced some new syndication deals, including one with The New York Times (where VentureBeat will also be syndicated). More surprisingly, Malik also announced that he has become a venture partner at True Ventures, GigaOM’s main venture backer. (Despite Malik’s assurances, the role seems like a bit of a distraction, and a complication for GigaOM’s venture coverage.)

Malik says the new funding will go towards expanding the company’s events and briefings, as well as adding to its portfolio, which means starting or acquiring even more blogs. The money also gives Giga Omni Media a bit of a cushion in case the economic downturn continues. The round was led by new investor Alloy Ventures, with True Ventures participating, along with angel investors Rakesh Mathur, Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajamaran.

This is pretty heartening news. Sure, Malik is ostensibly our competitor, but he was also an early inspiration for VentureBeat. It’s nice to see a blog network growing aggressively despite the economic chill, in contrast to the cutbacks at other sites.

Virtualization technology is still buzzing with activity, as its adoption by large companies remains one of the biggest trends in the economy right now.

Virtualization grabbed headlines 13 months ago, when VMware raised nearly $1 billion in an initial public offering. Now virtualization chip maker 3Leaf Systems has raised $35 million in a third round of funding to expand its offering.

Virtualization technology saves money for big companies, because it reduces the number of machines or other technology needed. In 3Leaf’s case, its technology basically creates one big pool of computers from a collection of Intel-compatible servers. With it, the company can run a single operating system across as many as 16 servers, creating a powerful multiprocessing system out of a bunch of low-cost servers.

Milpitas-based LSI Corp. led the round while Alloy Ventures, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Intel Capital and Storm Ventures also participated.

3Leaf, based in Santa Clara, Calif., said it would use the funds to accelerate development and expand sales and marketing. The company came out of secrecy in March and announced it has licensed Intel’s new processor data pathway (known as the QuickPath Interconnect bus) as part of a custom chip that creates memory-efficient links between data center servers. The company’s first product is expected to be a custom chip using the HyperTransport bus created by Advanced Micro Devices. That product is due in 2009.

The company previously had raised $32.5 million. It will compete with a variety of companies in the communications chip industry.

YouSendIt, a company that lets you send and receive large files through your email, has raised $14 million in a third round of funding.

The financing comes from new investor Emergence Capital Partners (the online services-focused firm best-known for backing Salesforce.com) and existing investors Sigma Partners, Alloy Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds and Cambrian Ventures. YouSendIt raised a $10 million second round last year.

YouSendIt has a range of offerings, including a free version of its basic service that lets you send files of up to 100 megabytes, as well as plugins For Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Photoshop and more. The Campbell, Calif. startup targets both consumers and corporations, but its niche is small businesses and independent professionals who need to send large files. YouSendIt says it already has 7 million users, and is growing by 200,000 per month.

Competitors include Pando, which is more consumer-focused and, unlike YouSendIt, uses peer-to-peer technology.

Representing a potential medical quantum leap similar to, but even more important than the commercialization of X-ray imaging, Pacific BioSciences has taken a whopping $100 million to make it possible to affordably map out an individual’s entire genome in a matter of minutes, and for under $1,000 dollars.

While several startups, including 23andMe and deCODEme, are already offering cheap genetic testing for individuals, the technology Pacific Bio is looking at is about as different from those as looking at a satellite image of a town is to walking through it. The company is working on a system to “read” each DNA letter in a person’s genetic makeup, providing an in-depth view of every factor affecting a given person’s health.

The idea sounds fairly simple: Individial DNA molecules are captured in tiny holes on a chip, where they are pulled apart and rebuilt with enzymes identical to those present in the body, but with the addition of chemical markers. A type of digital camera takes a picture of the process, identifying the specific fragment being looked at. We covered the technology in more depth when it was first revealed, and have mentioned various competitors, most notably Complete Genomics and BioNanomatrix, who want to do sequencing for under $100.

In practice, of course, operating at such tiny scales is difficult, and accurately sequencing thousands of genes at once seems nearly impossible. But the company says it will be ready to commercialize by 2010, a Herculean feat if it can pull it off. The new funding indicates that it is at least gaining the confidence of venture capitalists.

If and when that happens, it will be time for early investors including Alloy Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Mohr Davidow Ventures — who collectively plowed more than $70 million into Pacific Bio over four previous rounds — to rake in the money.

However, it will just be the beginning for a whole new field of medical technology centered around finding uses for all the new information in individuals that becomes available. Preventative medicine is the obvious use, but others, like data mining for new cures and information on diseases, are also possible. Laws regulating the use (and misuse) of such information by insurers, employers and others will also have to be formulated.

A passel of new investors joined the funding, starting with co-leads Deerfield Management and Intel Capital. Also in were Morgan Stanley, Redmile Group, T. Rowe Price, and an unnamed “large financial institution.” Other previous investors Maverick Capital, AllianceBernstein, DAG Ventures and Teachers’ Private Capital also participated.

While the idea of text messaging has grown in popularity — both via the phone and in the form of Twitter — startup Zannel seems convinced that people are more interested in sharing pictures and video, at least while on their mobile phones.

Zannel, which has been called “a multimedia Twitter,” lets its users post updates and start conversations using text, pictures or video, or any combination of the three. Users can keep track of their friends on their phone, or on their computer.

Now the Menlo Park, Calif. company has raised $10 million in backing to help remain in the pack of companies trying to push mobile social networking.

In his excellent piece for VentureBeat describing the ten most important mobile social networks, mobile consultant Matthaus Krzkowski listed Zannel as one of the fast-growing newbies.

Here’s what he said of Zannel, and particularly noteworthy are his remarks about Zannel’s readiness to mesh itself with other social networks:

Zannel did not disclose detailed traffic figures to me, beyond saying “we currently serve millions of users per month.” Assuming that’s true, that easily makes them one of the big players in the field, and their claim to be “mobile’s first Instant Media Messaging service” may be valid, when you look at market acceptance and consider that rich media apps are its No. 1 traffic driver, according to the company. The majority of Zannel’s business is off-deck where Zannel sees “incredibly fast, viral uptake,” suggesting strong recent growth. Over two thirds of Zannel’s traffic comes from the mobile web, the remainder comes from online.

Zannel sees the iPhone as a transformative product for mobile industry — it increases awareness of mobile’s potential and is a great platform for distributing rich media apps (Zannel’s traffic driver). As a mobile media messaging hub, Zannel lets users visually communicate with other users across all major social networks vs. just one. Therefore, Zannel sees the major social networks as complementary services rather than direct competitors.

The company claims to have numerous big-name partnerships with companies including Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, Activition, Toyota, Limelife and others. It is included with some Verizon and Helio handsets, or can be downloaded by its users.

Alloy Ventures led the $10 million funding and was joined by previous investors U.S. Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures. Zannel has raised a total of $16 million; see our article on its first funding, in 2006 for a few more details on its founders.

The chemicals business has gone through massive shifts in the past, and it’s high time for another one, according to Christopher Gann, the CEO of Genomatica, who recently left a cushy position at industry giant Dow Chemical for the startup. Chemical manufacturing is perched atop the much larger fossil fuel market, thus suffering from the same high prices the rest of the world does — but, says Gann, it can be weaned off hydrocarbons.

Shifting away from oil and gas is one of the most common stories in cleantech, with numerous companies claiming that they can make transportation fuels from renewable sources like corn, sugar and grasses. By contrast, chemical manufacturing has received relatively little attention, despite the fact that most chemical manufacturing is also based on crude oil and natural gas, going through stepped processes to reach the desired end product.

Part of the reason is that there are tens of thousands of products to deal with, though some, like polyethylene, account for billions in sales yearly. However, Genomatica claims to have the scientific chops to simplify the problem, and produce the needed compounds on demand, and has raised $20.4 million in a second round, according to VentureWire.

The company was started by a team of biotech researchers from the University of California at San Diego, who started out working with E. Coli genes. Several years ago, they realized that their expertise could be more profitably applied to organisms for other industrial uses. Similar to startups like Amyris, LS9 and Synthetic Genomics, they decided to begin custom-making organisms to produce specific substances.

However, their combination of lab experience and modeling ability provided other opportunities, and the group decided to move in on the chemical industry. To create specific chemicals, the team identifies pathways in organisms with computational modeling techniques, then tests their theories out in the lab. The combination of modeling ability and lab technology in a single company is rare, says Gann, and provides a significant advantage.

Genomatica is currently testing out organisms for several chemicals, with plans to move on to pilot plants to prove the processes. However, after the pilot tests, the company again diverges from biofuels startups. It has no plans to make its own full-scale plants, instead adding what Gann calls “bolt-on” facilities to existing, multi-billion dollar plants owned by larger companies.

The feedstocks Genomatica can use vary widely. Syngas byproducts from biofuel manufacture can be used, as well as carbon dioxide, the culprit behind global warming. And the company can make use of “a very broad array of plant matter,” says Gann, exceeding the reach of biofuel makers, who need plants that are highly cost-effective. Cleanup after the processes should also be simpler, only requiring cleanup of the fermentation matter and dead cells.

Genomatica isn’t entirely alone in its plans. Novomer wants to revolutionize plastics manufacturing, although it will rely on chemistry, rather than biological processes. Another startup, Segetis, appears to plan on using biological feedstocks, but again, will use chemical processes; the company was backed last year by Khosla Ventures.

Of those companies, Genomatica has raised the most funding to date, about $24 million including its first funding. The backers in this round were led by Mohr Davidow Ventures, with participation from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Alloy Ventures. The company is based in San Diego, Calif.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• OptiMedica takes in $16M for eye-treatment lasers (release)
• Genome analyzer BioNanomatrix raises $5M (release)
• Heart diagnostic startup Aviir gets another $1.5M (VBLS exclusive)
• Pharmaca, integrative-pharmacy chain, draws $20M (release)
• LifeWatch, cardiac-monitoring device maker, withdraws IPO (IPOhome)
• Jerry DeVries, Steven Whitlock join PTV Sciences as venture partners (VentureWire)

OptiMedica takes in $16M for eye-treatment lasers – OptiMedica, a Santa Clara, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $16 million in a third funding round. Investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Alloy Ventures and DAG Ventures.

The startup makes and sells an eye-treatment laser system called Pascal — the acronym stands for “pattern scan laser” — which is approved for treating of retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and other conditions involving the abnormal growth of blood vessels that can leak and obscure vision. The laser works by “photocoagulation,” which simply means it burns and fuses tissue at the point of focus — sealing off blood vessels, for instance, healing tears in the retina or even reattaching a retina that’s come loose.

Genome analyzer BioNanomatrix raises $5M – This item is now a standalone post here.

Heart diagnostic startup Aviir gets another $1.5M – Palo Alto, Calif.-based Aviir, a biotech focused on heart diagnostics, raised an additional $1.5 million as a follow-on to its second funding round, the company’s chief operating officer, Avi Kulkarni, said. The money is an equity investment related to a still-undisclosed partnership with a large pharmaceutical company, he told me.

Aviir is still in stealth mode, as we noted last year when we first wrote about its use of Stanford technology for detection and monitoring of cardiovascular disease. Kulkarni did offer a few additional details, telling me, for instance, that the company’s name is actually an acronym that stands for “atherosclerotic venous inflammation and insulin resistance.”

That, plus the fact that Aviir is working on what Kulkarni said is a “multiple biomarker panel assay” for heart disease, suggests to me that the company plans on measuring the levels of various proteins, probably from blood, in order to get a more precise picture of stressors such as inflammation and insulin resistance that might lead to heart problems. (”Insulin resistance” is an interesting choice, since that’s the cause — or the effect, perhaps — of type 2 diabetes, which is also linked to heart trouble.)

Aviir raised $11.5 million of a planned $25 million round last September, it disclosed in an SEC form now available online (PDF link) via the California Department of Corporations. The remainder of that round will become available when the company hits unspecified milestones.

For a look at the sort of thing Aviir is probably working on, check out this 2007 paper from Physiological Genomics, in which a research team from Stanford and Aviir detail the use of inflammatory proteins known as chemokines to identify patients with atherosclerosis. On the more whimsical side, a self-described friend of the company’s founders describes what he knows about Aviir on his blog, and also posts a odd homemade video “commercial” that suggests the company will be predicting lifetime disease risks for infants.

Retrevo, the Silicon Valley company that helps you shop electronic products, and then helps you after the purchase (with troubleshooting tips), has raised $8 million more in a second round of financing.

We reported on the company’s first fundings, which totaled $3.9 million (see our coverage here and here), and then later on its release of a set of useful comparison features. Retrevo now offers a great overview of a category of products. For example, if you choose mobile phones, it gives you a way to select them based on value, taking into account their price and features. It provides an overall sentiment rating for each product, which also takes into account user reviews.

We wrote before that it has joined a very crowded field, and today it remains as crowded as ever. Retrevo thinks its offer to help you find a way to troubleshoot a product after you buy will make it stand out. But is that enough to get it noticed, and to make money? It’s too early to say. Chief executive Vipin Jain says he aims to break even next year, from ads, but also from referral fees. He won’t say how much traffic the site has, but says traffic has quadrupled in the last year.

The round was led by Alloy Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners.

(UPDATED: See below.)

Irvine, Calif.-based Arbor Surgical Technologies, a developer of minimally invasive heart-valve replacement devices, raised another $5.5 million in its third funding round, VentureBeat Life Sciences has learned. The cash came courtesy of the Laguna Fund, a new investor, and Delphi Ventures and Alloy Ventures, which have participated in previous funding rounds.

Arbor said it raised $20 million in the round in late January, so the extension brings that round to a total of $25.5 million. The company’s CEO, Steve Bacich, didn’t return a phone call or an email seeking comment.

Arbor, founded in 2002, is currently conducting European clinical tests of its replacement device for the heart’s aortic valve, which controls the flow of oxygen-rich blood from the left ventricle into the aorta. The valves are made of bovine pericardium, the tough tissue sac that surrounds a cow’s heart.

Many existing aortic-valve replacements require open-heart surgery; Arbor says its device can be implanted in a minimally invasive procedure, although it doesn’t describe the procedure in any of its available public information. The company plans U.S. trials of the device later this year. In January, Arbor licensed manufacturing, marketing and distribution rights to the device to Medtronic in exchange for an equity investment and, most likely, other undisclosed payments.

Of course, no Valentine’s Day would be complete without some messy pictures of heart surgery. I’ve put an Arbor photo comparing the implantation of its device to that of traditional aortic-valve replacements after the jump.

UPDATE: Bacich got back to me about ten minutes after this post went up — which was close to three hours after I called and emailed him — and said he doesn’t know anything about this funding. He’s running down the facts, and I’ll update again when I know more. He also said that Laguna is an existing investor — according to Bacich, it’s a “branch” of funds owned by Arbor co-founder Thomas Fogarty. Laguna isn’t listed as an investor on the Arbor Web site, although Fogarty is.

Read the rest of this entry »

Qwaq, a Silicon Valley company seeking to let company work groups collaborate in a 3D online virtual environment, has just raised $7 million in financing.

Virtual collaboration might sound fanciful, but increasingly experts are saying this is where the office environment is headed. Well-known venture capitalist John Doerr is just the latest to speak of a 3D “radically immersive” Web and to say that he is looking to invest in it, though he is not the backer of Qwaq. In the latest online 3D environments, users can turn to each other and carry one-one-one conversations, or one-to-many conversations, just as in real life. Qwaq tries to extend that vision, but is still in early stages.

We’ve played with Qwaq, and here’s how it works:

You enter a virtual room, occupied by other users and objects like tables and posters on the walls (see screenshots).

Many of those objects are your standard desktop items. A big square poster on the wall, for instance, might be a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. When you click on the spreadsheet with your cursor from across the room, or access it via toolbar command, it’ll expand to fill your screen.

You see what the other users are doing in real-time, as they move around and modify objects, such as the aforementioned Excel spreadsheet. If you are editing that spreadsheet, you can also see another user’s person as they modify each cell.

There are some less obvious examples of objects. One the company showed me was a 3D diagram of a molecule that a biology team could study. Another was a virtual representation of a patient’s head, which could be used for illustration at a meeting of physicians in their virtual conference room. You can also place “real world” objects into your room, like fans or house plants, for ambiance.

You can chat with the other users, add or subtract objects, or move through different rooms as desired. There’s not much lag, and your computer doesn’t have to be all that powerful.

Qwaq is just one of several companies pursuing this vision, although it is the first solely focused on large company (enterprise) collaboration to get venture backing. Tixeo, of France, is another start-up focused on the same market. A range of other companies are offering tools or other initiatives to set up virtual worlds, though they vary in their focus on letting corporate groups collaborate. They include Second Life, VastPark, ProtonMedia, Forterra Systems and Multiverse Network.

Here’s why Qwaq’s efforts are significant.

Online collaboration tools are increasingly in use, but typically are limited in their use (Google Docs, for example, allows real-time collaboration, but with no way for group communications). Qwaq is more flexible. It provides a way to share any program file or resource across computers. Placing everything in a virtual environment allows for a larger number of objects than a straightforward desktop interface. Say you’re working with a project team on a collection of a dozen different files and documents. By virtually looking around the room, you can see who is working on what, and what’s available to be worked on, more easily than you can with most other collaboration programs.

Chief executive Greg Nuyens talks a lot about “intuitions” in a 3D environment: Our sensory apparatus are much better for operating in a 3D world. It lets us use our brain, our visual cortex, as well as sound as a cue to activity. All of this is under-used on the desktop. (With Qwaq, you can choose whether or not you hear people talking in the program, and there are sounds for various actions.)

This is just the beginning of virtualization. Business computers tend to be less powerful than home computers (which are often equipped for gaming). Second Life has thrived, in part, because it is best used at home with computers having better graphic cards and memory. Qwaq has thus been designed with a simpler interface. Over time, Qwaq aims to handle and represent more tasks.

The company won’t say how many users it has, but the number is small. The company charges between $30 and $60 per user per month.

The financing round is the company’s second. It was led by Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures. Previously, Qwaq raised less than $1 million in from KPG Ventures.

(UPDATED: See below.)

Featured companies: Anaptys Biosciences, Arterial Remodeling Technologies, Cambria Biosciences, CaseNet, ChemoCentryx, Ensemble Discovery, MediQuest, Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, Raven Biotechnologies, Sensys Medical, Verus Pharmaceuticals, Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals

UPDATED: Expanded items on Anaptys, Arterial Remodeling, Raven Biotech, Sensys and MediQuest. Moved ChemoCentryx and Xanodyne to a separate item.

Antibody-drug maker Raven Biotech merges with VaxGen — Raven Biotechnologies, a South San Francisco biotech developing antibody drugs, is merging with the troubled, publicly held vaccine maker VaxGen. The confusingly worded release is here.

Although the deal isn’t technically a reverse merger, Raven is effectively taking over the shell that VaxGen has become. VaxGen, once best known for its pioneering, but ultimately failed, attempt to produce an AIDS vaccine, next set its hopes on producing anthrax vaccine for the U.S. government. But the company lost that contract in 2006. VaxGen had been delisted from the Nasdaq two years earlier. Since then, VaxGen has been looking to sell itself or to find some other combination with which it could make use of its cash ($56.5 million as of Sept. 30) and existing investment in biotech production facilities. [UPDATE: VaxGen's CFO wrote in to point out that the company also holds $20.7 million in "investment securities."]

Although Vaxgen will be the surviving company, Raven CEO George Schreiner will run the combined entity, most of whose business will consist of Raven’s antibody-drug development programs. The company’s lead candidate, RAV12, is currently in early-to-mid stage tests against a type of cander called adenocarcinoma. According to VentureWire, Raven has raised $115 million in venture funding.

All of which makes the deal’s valuation a bit puzzling. As of Sept. 30, VaxGen had 33.1 million shares outstanding, giving the company a market capitalization of $36.7 million at its closing price of $1.11 on the Pink Sheets. VaxGen will issue another 32 million shares and will end up with 51 percent of the combined company. Near as I can tell, that seems to value Raven at somewhere around $33 million, although I wouldn’t take that figure to the bank.

Before the deal can close, VaxGen needs to relist its stock on a national exchange. The two companies will undergo restructuring to save cash, and once combined will use Raven’s headquarters in South San Francisco.

Antibody-drug maker Anaptys raises $34M — Anaptys Biosciences, a San Diego biotech developing new antibody-based drugs, raised $33.9 million in a second funding round. Investors included Novo A/S, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Numenor Ventures, WS Investment and Anaptys board member Nick Lydon.

Anaptys relies on a technique for producing large quantities of varied antibodies in order to find ones with the best “drug-like” properties. We’ve written about other companies working on similar “diversity generation” techniques, most recently AvidBiotics, which we described here.

Arterial Remodeling Tech gets €5.5M for absorbable stents — Paris-based Arterial Remodeling Technologies (no Web site), a device maker developing “bioresorbable” artery-opening stents, raised €5.5 million ($7.8 million). Investors included Matignon Technologies and SGAM Alternative Investments.

Stents are the meshlike tubes used to prop open blocked arteries following a heart attack. Existing stents can lead to side effects such as scarring and potentially dangerous blood clots, so companies such as ART are developing stents that slowly dissolve into harmless components such as carbon dioxide and water. Although ART doesn’t describe its technology in detail, see this 2004 press release about Guidant’s acquisition of a bioresorbable-stent startup and this article for a look at how these absorbable stents might work.

Glucose-meter maker Sensys Medical pulls in $3.8M — Chandler, Ariz.-based Sensys Medical, a device maker developing a non-invasive glucose meter for diabetics, raised $3.8 million of $4.5 million in bridge funding, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Adams Street Partners, Alliance Technology Ventures and Pappas Ventures.

MediQuest seeks $20M to $40M against Raynaud’s disease — Bothell, Wash.-based MediQuest, a biotech developing new treatments against Raynaud’s disease, aims to raise up to $40 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. The company recently reported positive late-stage data of its drug for Raynaud’s disease, a condition involving reduced blood flow to the extremities.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Ensemble Discovery gathers $15M for DNA-based drugs (PE Hub)
• Piedmont Pharma draws $8.5M for parasitology drugs (release)
• CaseNet raises $7.5M for healthcare-management software (release)
• Cambria Biosciences pulls in $5M to fight neurodegenerative disease (release)
• Verus Pharma names Robert Keith as CEO (release)

(UPDATED: See below.)

Featured companies: FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, Ophthotech, Pevion Biotech, Restoration Robotics, Glide Pharma, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Nanosphere, SurModics, BioFX Laboratories

FoldRx Pharma to receive $22M against cystic fibrosis — Cambridge, Mass.-based FoldRx Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on diseases that result from misfolded proteins, will get $22 million over the next five years from an affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to further its work against the genetic lung disease. The money will be paid as FoldRx meets various developmental milestones, including pushing two experimental drugs into early-stage human trials. The company’s current drug candidates, however, don’t target cystic fibrosis, and instead aim to take on a particular class of diseases known as amyloidosis and Parkinson’s disease.

The Boston Globe and the WSJ Health Blog have more.

Newly formed Ophthotech raises $36M against eye disease — Ophthotech, a newly formed Princeton, N.J., biotech with a focus on eye disease, raised a whopping $36 million in a first funding round. The company, founded by a bevy of former Eyetech Pharmaceuticals officials, is going to follow directly in the former company’s footsteps by taking aim at age-related macular degeneration with aptamers licensed from Archemix (which we wrote about here).

Investors in the round included SV Life Sciences, HBM BioVentures and Novo A/S. (See update below.)

Pevion Biotech gets $29M for vaccines — Pevion Biotech, a Bern, Switzerland-based vaccine developer, raised $29 million (CHF35 million) in a first funding round. Investors included BZ Bank Aktiengesellschaft, BB Biotech Ventures II, CC Private Equity Partners and Bachem Holding. The company is conducting clinical trials of vaccines against malaria, breast cancer and hepatitis C.

Hair-transplant automator Restoration Robotics raises $25M — Restoration Robotics, a Mountain View, Calif., developer of robotic surgery systems for hair transplants, raised $25 million in a second round of funding, PE Hub reports. The company’s Web site is a stub and the linked article doesn’t contain much information, but an April VentureWire store republished at Alta Partners’ site gets to the root of the matter:

Sutter Hill Ventures and Alloy Ventures, for example, have invested in the first and second rounds raised in 2005 and 2006, respectively, by Restoration Robotics Inc., which is testing a robotic device that performs hair transplants. Transplant-surgery outcomes vary according to the surgeon’s skill. Restoration’s robot — which is surgeon-controlled — produces uniform results in half the time, says CEO Jim McCollum. Investors hope this pushes hair transplants into the mainstream. Today, “people think of late-night commercials when they think of hair restoration,” says Sutter Hill Managing Director Jeffrey W. Bird.

Investors in the round include InterWest Partners, Alloy Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Glide Pharma raises $4.6M for needle-free drugs — U.K. specialty pharma Glide Pharma raised $4.6 million (£2.3 million). Investors included Oxford Technology 4 VCT and Oxford Capital Partners. The company is developing drugs that can be delivered via its own needle-free injection system. We’ve written about other startups pursuing similar technology, including StrataGent Life Sciences and Macroflux.

Reliant Pharma refiles for a $400M IPO — Reliant Pharmaceuticals, a Liberty Corner, N.J., specialty pharma that withdrew a planned $300 million IPO in 2005, is going to try again, only with more at stake. The company filed to raise as much as $400 million in an offering, despite the fact that it is on track to lose more than $100 million this year, which would be the third time in four years it has done so.

In the first six months of this year, Reliant reported a net loss to common shareholders of $56.4 million on revenue of $230 million. That net loss would have been only $21.8 million but for preferred-share dividends of $34.6 million in the half. Reliant sells a variety of unrelated second-hand drugs for cardiovascular problems.

Interestingly enough, Reliant made its last charge at the public markets with the famed Ernest Mario at the helm. Mario jumped from Reliant just last week, and is now CEO of the little-known Capnia (see our coverage here).

Nanosphere aims for outsized $100M IPO — Nanosphere, a Northbrook, Ill., developer of nucleic-acid and protein detection and diagnostic systems, filed to raise as much as $100 million in an IPO. As of March 31, the company had an accumulated deficit of $112.6 million. Earlier this year, it submitted its Verigene molecular-diagnostic system to the FDA for approval; Nanosphere intends to market the device to hospital laboratories that currently aren’t equipped to perform such tests in-house.

SurModics snaps up diagnostic-supply company BioFX for up to $22.7M — SurModics, an Eden Prairie, Minn., developer of drug formulations and other biological supplies, agreed to acquire BioFX Laboratories of Owings Mills, Md., for $11.3 million in cash and milestone payments worth up to $11.4 million. The release is here. The acquisition is the second for SurModics this month; it bought out Brookwood Laboraties on Aug. 2 (our coverage is here).

UPDATE (2:37pm PT): Added items on Glide Pharma, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Nanosphere, and SurModics/BioFX Laboratories.

UPDATE REDUX: Over at Pharma’s Cutting Edge, Fred Cohen notes what I didn’t have time to, which is that Ophthotech essentially amounts to a do-over for the architects of Eyetech’s failure. Check it out.

(UPDATED at 6:40pm PT: See below.)

Featured companies: Nereus Phramaceuticals, KFx Medical, NeuroMed Pharmaceuticals, Adnexus Therapeutics, Masimo, Biofisica, Aegera Therapeutics, LymphoSign, InfuScience, Palmetto Infusion Services

Nereus Pharma raises $45M for ocean-derived cancer drugs — San Diego’s Nereus Pharmaceuticals, a biotech that searches for cancer drugs in marine microbes, raised $45 million in a follow-on to its fourth funding round.

The company features an all-star lineup of investors, which includes BankInvest, Roche Venture Fund, Astellas Venture Management, Boston Life Science Venture Corporation, Taiwan Global Biofund, Eminent Venture Capital, HBM BioVentures, Alta Partners, Forward Ventures, Advent International, GIMV, InterWest Partners and Pacific Venture Group.

From the press release:

The proceeds from the financing will be drawn down in two tranches and used to complete Phase I and begin Phase II clinical trials for Nereus’ two drug candidates. The first compound, NPI-2358, is being evaluated for the treatment of solid tumors and lymphomas in Phase I clinical trials. It is a potent, selective tumor vascular disrupting agent (VDA), a class of compounds that represents a novel approach to disrupting the intrinsic tumor blood flow, which leads to tumor cell death. NPI-2358 has favorable preclinical characteristics, such as a longer duration of action on tumor blood flow, activity against multi-drug resistant tumor cell lines and a favorable preclinical toxicology profile. The compound is one of 200 analogues that were produced after finding activity and novel chemistry from a marine fungal extract.

Nereus’ proteasome inhibitor NPI-0052 is in Phase I trials for solid tumors, lymphomas and multiple myeloma. Preclinical studies indicate that this next generation compound may be superior to Velcade(R), with broader target inhibition, faster onset of action, higher potency, oral and intravenous availability, and activity against myeloma cells resistant to Velcade(R) (bortezomib, Millennium), Thalomid(R) (thalidomide, Celgene Corporation), Revlimid(R) (lenalidomide, Celgene Corporation) and steroid therapy. NPI-0052 was derived from a marine-obligate gram-positive actinomycete (Salinispora tropica).

Rotator-cuff specialist KFx Medical raises $10M — San Diego’s KFx Medical, a Carlsbad, Calif., developer of minimally invasive repair systems for rotator-cuff injuries, raised $10 million in a second funding round. Investors included Alloy Ventures, Charter Life Sciences, Arboretum Ventures, Montreux Equity Partners, and MB Venture Partners.

It’s pretty difficult for a non-surgeon to figure out exactly how KFx’s system works better than current medical practice, but if you’re interested in a look, check it out here.

NeuroMed Pharma drops Merck work on pain drug, raises $36M — Vancouver-based NeuroMed Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on new pain meds, discontinued Merck-funded work on an experimental pain drug called MK-6721. The Merck collaboration, valued at as much as $475 million, will continue.

Separately, NeuroMed has raised $36 million toward a fifth funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). That round isn’t yet complete, and the investors haven’t been disclosed. The funding is designed to pay for completing late-stage human trials of a separate pain drug the company recently licensed from a J&J subsidiary.

Adnexus raises $15.5M against cancer — Adnexus Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass., biotech developing a new class of drugs against cancer and other diseases, raised $15.5 million in a third funding round. Investors included HBM BioVentures (Cayman), Atlas Venture, Flagship Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners and Venrock. The company intends to use the proceeds to further clinical development of its lead candidate, Angiocept, which is currently in early-stage trials in cancer.

Masimo IPO raises $233 million, jumps 23% on first day — Irvine, Calif.-based Masimo, a major developer of non-invasive patient monitors, priced its IPO in the middle of its predicted range of $16 to $18 per share, raising as much as $232.9 million — just shy of the quarter-million-dollar mark we discussed here. Since the offering involved a hefty chunk of shares sold by existing shareholders, however, the company can only pocket up to $55.9 million of the proceeds. Investors received the offering warmly, pushing the stock up to $20.90 yesterday, a rise of 23 percent.

Biofisica raises $2M in venture debt for wound healing — Atlanta’s Biofisica, a medical-device maker focused on wound healing, raised $2 million in debt financing from Leader Ventures. The company makes an electrical-stimulation device designed to speed the healing of wounds, and currently sells it in the United Kingdom.

Aegera acquires LymphoSign, uniting two Canadian oncology biotechs — Aegera Therapeutics, a Montreal biotech focused on cancer, acquired Toronto’s LymphoSign, another cancer-specialized biotech, for undisclosed terms. Several shareholders also made additional investments in Aegera’s previously announced third funding round.

InfuScience acquires Palmetto Infusion Services — InfuScience, a Chicago provider of drug-infusion therapy, acquired Palmetto Infusion Services of Beaufort, S.C., for an undisclosed sum.

UPDATE (6:40pm PT): Added KFx Medical item.