VentureBeat

Workplace social networking company Mzinga has raised a hefty $32.5 million, and used some of that money to purchase a similar company called Prospero Technologies. Until now, Mzinga has focused on in-company social networks, but the acquisition should allow it to create similar offerings on the customer side, which is Prospero’s specialty.

The big gain for Mzinga appears to be Prospero’s social media technology, which allows companies to interact with their customers through social networking, advertising, message boards, chats, reviews and blogs. Mzinga touts the social media platform’s versatility — it can be customized and integrated into your website through widgets, templates and API.

With the merger, Burlington, Mass.-based Mzinga has become a an even more formidable player in this field — it now has 150 employees and $30 million in annual revenue. It’s possible other enterprise software companies will consider consolidating to keep up.

Neither Mzinga nor Prospero was doing anything revolutionary (Mzinga offers a standard suite of blogs, wikis, idea-sharing applications and discussion forums), but both companies have attracted impressive customer bases. Most notably, Prospero’s clients before the merger included AOL, Disney, ESPN and the Washington Post.

The funding was led by W Capital Partners, which was joined by Bluecrest Capital Finance, GE Capital and Knowledge Industries.

One of the constant but unavoidable challenges in trying to control diabetes is the frequent need to test blood-sugar levels by sticking a needle into a fingertip — a step that tells diabetics when they need a snack (to raise blood glucose) or a shot of insulin (to lower it). “Lancing” fingers several times a day can render the tips so tender that it restricts ordinary activity — playing the piano, for instance — for some diabetics. While that may sound like a minor inconvenience compared to the awful side effects that uncontrolled diabetes can cause, such as gangrene and blindness, it’s often enough to keep some diabetics from testing their blood as frequently as they should.

Over the years, a number of companies have worked to minimize the pain of blood testing. (One of them, the former Therasense, was acquired by Abbott Laboratories for $1 billion in 2004.) Now Pelikan Technologies, a Palo Alto, Calif., company whose lineage traces back to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, is preparing to launch a new electronically controlled device that it claims will virtually eliminate the pain associated with lancing.

The main advantage Pelikan claims is that its lancing is computer controlled in a way that prevents undue damage to the fingertip and minimizes pain by keeping the lancet from penetrating too deeply. Most lancets, the company alleges, go right past the capillaries that carry blood and into an underlying network of nerves — thus the pain. Pelikan’s lancet is supposed to stop short at the capillary level, although the company doesn’t say exactly how. (From the Web site, it looks as though users are supposed to select the insertion depth from one of 30 different settings, which doesn’t sound terribly convenient to me.) One of the company’s diagrams is at left; for their complete description, see here.

The Pelikan Sun also supposedly creates a straighter wound that heals more easily, and withdraws the needle more slowly to reduce the amount of damage caused to surrounding tissue. The lancet takes a disk prefilled with 50 needles, which also reduces the time and inconvenience of refilling a lancet pen.

Pelikan plans to launch its lancet, which is already on sale in Australia and Europe, in the U.S. early next year. The company is also at work on a new device that will combine the lancet with an electronic glucometer that measures sugar levels, in an attempt to reduce the number of items diabetics have to carry around with them. Normally a diabetic must first stick a finger with an injector-style pen device that quickly jabs a tiny needle in and out, then dab the blood on an absorbent treated strip that slots into a glucometer. The company hopes to launch the combined device next year as well.

Pelikan just raised $69 million in a sixth funding round, and pulled in another $20 million in venture debt financing. Investors in the equity round include Clarus Ventures, HBM BioVentures, Global Life Science Ventures, Mannheim Holdings and Bio*One Capital. The debt was provided by GE Capital and Oxford Finance.

Featured companies: Bravo Health, InfraReDx, MedAssets, Prestwick Pharmaceuticals

Prestwick Pharma raises $20M for neuro drugs — Specialty pharma Prestwick Pharmaceuticals, a Washington, D.C., firm that acquires cast-off drug candidates to treat neurological conditions, raised $20 million from existing investors, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Among those participating in the funding were Atlas Venture, Sofinnova Ventures, Vivo Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Warburg Pincus and Pequot Ventures.

Prestwick said it raised the funds to acquire additional drug candidates. The company filed to go public in 2005, but pulled its filing in December of that year.

InfraReDx aims for $40M to detect artery plaque — Burlington, Mass.-based InfraReDx aims to raise $40 million in a “mezzanine” financing to launch its artery-plaque diagnostic system, VentureWire reports. The company is talking to existing and potential new investors, including VC firms and hedge funds.

InfraReDx is developing a near-infrared spectroscopy system for the detection of arterial plaque, which can rupture and create blood clots that could lead to a heart attack. The company expects to complete a clinical trial in October that could lead to approval of the device.

Bravo Health raises undisclosed sum for acquisition — Bravo Health, a venture-backed provider in the Medicare prescription-drug coverage plan formerly known as Elder Health, raised an undisclosed sum in an eighth funding round, VentureWire reports. The funding covers the company’s recent acquisition of a Philadelphia Medicare provider called Senior Health.

Investors included all backers from the company’s previous funding round, a group that includes New Enterprise Associates, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, CCP Equity Partners, Salix Ventures, Alpha Partners, Coleman Swenson Hoffman Booth, Franklin Venture Capital, Frontenac Co., GE Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Riggs Capital Partners, Sprout Group, Wasatch Venture Fund and Woodbrook.

MedAssets, healthcare IT provider, aims for $230M IPO — MedAssets, an Alpharetta, Ga., provider of healthcare IT and consulting services, filed to raise up to $230 million in an initial offering. The company aims to help community hospitals increase “revenue capture” and “cash collections” and to manage “non-labor expense categories.”

Oddly, MedAsset doesn’t appear to have yet maximized its own revenue capture, as it posted a net loss of $23.8 million last year on revenues of $177.9 million.