VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Autonomic Technologies raises $3M for neurostimulators (PE Hub)
• Canopy Financial raises $15M for outsourced healthcare management (release)
• Cancer-drug developer AmpliMed draws $5M (PE Hub)
• Caprotec Bioanalytics receives €6M for protein-analysis tech (release)
• ProtAffin draws additional €1.4M for anti-inflammatory drugs (release)
• Toxicology-services firm Bridge Labs takes in $18M (release)
• Dental-compound maker NovaMin takes in $2.2M (TechJournal South)
• Aushon Bio takes in $4M for microarrays (PE Hub)
• Treatment Online receives $750K for Web behavioral healthcare (PDF release)
• IPO the Hospitalist aims to raise $60M with IPO for inpatient care (Edgar)
• Clinical diagnostics maker Laboratory Partners pulls in $16M (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• SynDevRx targets $11M for cancer drugs (VW)

Autonomic Technologies raises $3M for neurostimulators — Menlo Park, Calif.-based Autonomic Technologies (no Web site), a medical device company developing some sort of neurostimulator, has raised $3 million of an intended $5 million first round of funding, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers provided the cash, while the Cleveland Clinic is also listed as a shareholder.

The company appears to be pretty well stealthed, as so far I haven’t managed to turn up any telltale traces outside of this single report. Among other things, the Kleiner site, unsurprisingly, doesn’t even list Autonomic in its portfolio. One potential clue lies in the company’s name, as the phrase “autonomic technology” generally refers to software or a network that manages and corrects itself (IBM has been a big proponent of the idea, although it’s hard to tell from here if it’s classic IT hype or something real). So presumably the startup is pursuing neurostimulation that engages a “self-healing” response of some sort in the brain or central nervous system.

If anyone knows anything about what Autonomic is up to, feel free to give us a shout in comments or by email.

Cancer-drug developer AmpliMed draws $5M — Amplimed, a Tuscon, Ariz., biotech focused on cancer drugs, has raised $5 million of a planned $22 million third funding round, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors included BioMed Venture Partners, Biotech Insight Ventures, Solstice Capital and Valley Ventures.

AmpliMed is working on a new type of chemotherapy drug — technically, a cytotoxic chemotherapy that targets all rapidly dividing cells in the body — that it claims may be substantially less toxic that most such drugs. The company’s lead candidate, which it calls Amplimexon, inhibits a compound called glutathione that appears to protect cancer cells from damage by “free oxygen” radicals, or single-atom oxygen ions that typically wreak havoc within cells. AmpliMed suggests that non-cancerous cells that also divide rapidly, such as those lining the gut, appear to weather the suppression of glutathione more hardily than tumor cells, which theoretically should accumulate loads of oxygen radicals and then self-destruct.

Amplimexon is currently in mid-stage human tests against pancreatic and skin cancer. The company also has two other cancer compounds in earlier stages of development.

Canopy Financial raises $15M for outsourced healthcare management — Canopy Financial, a San Francisco developer of healthcare information systems, raised $15 million in a first funding round. Granite Global Ventures provided the funding.

Canopy sells systems for managing “consumer-oriented” health plans such as health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts. These are plans that purport to reduce healthcare costs by making individuals “responsible” for their medical spending, in effect by requiring them to pay for doctor and hospital visits out of a pre-established and often tax-exempt account to which employers may or may not contribute.

Clinical diagnostics maker Laboratory Partners pulls in $16M — Palo Alto, Calif.-based Laboratory Partners (no Web site), a provider of diagnostic tests to hospitals and other healthcare providers, raised $16 million in a fourth funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The company said the funding will allow it to pursue acquisitions in the field.

Investors in the round included Primus Capital Funds (which put up $10 million), Oxford Bioscience Partners, Chrysalis Ventures and Fort Washington Capital Partners Group. Lab Partners has previously raised $26 million in venture funding, VentureWire reports.

SynDevRx targets $11M for cancer drugs — SynDevRx, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech developing new cancer drugs, is looking to raise $11 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. The company is pursuing an anti-angiogenic compound — that is, a drug candidate intended to block the growth of new blood vessels in tumors — originally developed in the lab of Children’s Hospital researcher Judah Folkman.

SynDevRx, founded in 2007, says this family of compounds may also be useful in other disease, including age-related macular degeneration, endometriosis and fluid retention (edema). The funding will allow the company to move its lead candidate, Caplostatin, into clinical trials. The compound caused side effects in previous clinical trials, but has since been re-engineered in hopes of mitigating that toxicity.

Money has been pouring into battery and fuel cell startups of late, with companies like A123 Systems, Lilliputian Systems, and M2E Power (coverage here, here and here) raising funding ranging from single- to triple-digit millions.

Now another company has taken on a heavy round of funding: Boston Power, a firm that plans to concentrate its efforts on the laptop market with a battery that ages better than competing products.

One of the most annoying things about laptop batteries (besides when they catch on fire) is their short lifespan. Standard lithium-ions lose their ability to recharge over time, and typically have to be replaced every year or so by mobile workers.

The battery that Boston Power just began producing, the Sonata, will continue to charge just as well as they did when brand new for up to several years, depending on the usage habits of owners.

The Sonata averages a four to five time longer lifespan than current battery technology, according to the company. That, in turn, will lead to fewer discarded batteries from the millions of laptop users around the world.

“I have a system that’s a few years old, but I still get 4 hours battery life. I’m often the only person in the room that’s not plugged in,” founder and CEO Chrstine Lampe-Onnerund told us in an interview.

Unlike companies like A123, which has a proprietary doping technology, Onnerund tells us that Boston Power’s secret is just in overall good engineering, and solving production problems ranging from battery chemistry to the manufacturing process.

The Sonata will, at least initially, be sold through laptop manufacturers who will choose what to charge for it. The company plans on scaling its production, which is handled by outside firms, to one million batteries per month by the end of 2008.

The $45 million investment is the company’s third. Oak Investment Partners led the round, while Venrock Associates, Granite Global Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners also participated. The Boston-area company has raised over $68 million total to date.

Alibaba has raised US$1.5 billion in the biggest ever initial public offering by a Chinese Internet company, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It’s the biggest offering in Hong Kong’s IPO history, and drew capital from more capital from Asian investors than from those in Europe and the U.S., according to the report. It continues a remarkable trend of growth in Chinese comapnies. A few days ago, the New York Times’ Floyd Norris pointed out that China now has eight companies among the 20 most highly valued ones in world stock markets, more than the United States’ seven. (Image here courtesy of the NYT, based on Bloomberg data).
In Alibaba’s IPO, U.S. investors will get handsomely rewarded. Yahoo owns a 39 percent stake in the company. Alibaba.com also raised about $104 million from investors including Granite Global Ventures, Fidelity Investments and others.