Vertos raises $15.5M to decompress spines
Vertos Medical, maker of a non-invasive device for decompressing lumbar spine discs, has brought in $15.5 million in a fourth round of funding from Onset Ventures, CHL Medical Partners, Foundation Medical Partners, Aweida Venture Partners and DFJ Mercury. Based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., the company has now raised $32.5 million to date.
Google.org gives electric cars a push, with investments in Aptera and ActaCell
Two companies have been tapped as the first recipients of an investment from a program called RechargeIT, run by Google’s philanthropic arm: Aptera Motors, a Carlsbad, Calif. company that is gearing up to sell a futuristic three-wheeled car; and ActaCell, a battery company that hopes to help make electric cars both cheap and safe.
Each company is receiving $2.75 million from Google.org (although ActaCell also has other new investors). The announcement comes as RechargeIT is releasing… Continue Reading
Illumitex, a stealth LED maker, raises $5.25M
Austin, Tex. based Illumitex has raised $5.25 million toward a $10 million second round of funding, according to the Austin Business Journal.
The company appears to be in full stealth mode, but has existed since at least the second half of 2006, when another company called Competitive Technologies disclosed that it had entered into a partnership with Illumitex.
The press release from the partnership states that “Illumitex’s patent-pending LED optics technology increases brightness and efficiency of HBLEDs… Continue Reading
Unwired Nation, BlueGrind turning online text into audio
Unwired Nation launched a service today turns online content into an audio podcast so that users listen to the content in their car, at the gym or any other place they carry their phone.
Coincidentally, another new company, BlueGrind.com, offers a similar service. It lets you find an RSS feed for your favorite site, and the converts text content into an MP3 file and submits it to iTunes. For blog and other site owners, it is… Continue Reading
Funding roundup: Announcements that got away
Although I try to stay on top of events in the life sciences, announcements do sometimes manage to slip through the cracks. Some days, in fact, I end up triaging. Because the roots of this site — not to mention many of its readers — are in Silicon Valley, Bay Area events are a priority. Then come announcements from the rest of the U.S., then Asia, then Europe. Also, smaller or partial fundings tend to… Continue Reading