Microchip Biotech eyes launch with new $18.1M
Microchip Biotechnologies, maker of technology used in DNA sequencing, has brought in $18.1 million to launch its product on the market. Based in Pleasanton, Calif., the company is backed by Domain Associates, Samsung Ventures, Western Technology Investment, In-Q-Tel, Rona Syndicates and private individuals.
Cambrios lands $14.5M for electronic display components
Cambrios, maker of conductive films used in electronic displays and monitors, has brought in $14.5 million in a fourth round of venture capital. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company is backed by ARCH Venture Partners, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Alloy Ventures, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Harris & Harris Group, Headland Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Kidron, Lux Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Oxford Bioscience Partners, Presidio Ventures, Sumitomo, Chisso and Nissha Printing.
3VR finds $12M for searchable surveillance
3VR Security, maker of video surveillance equipment with a built-in search engine and more detailed motion and facial recognition, has brought in $12 million in a fourth round of funding led by Menlo Ventures, according to PE Hub. Based in San Francisco, the company will continue to expand its client base, now numbering 600 across a wide array of sectors, and diversify its portfolio of surveillance products for different needs. One of the selling points… Continue Reading
Semprius absorbs $6M for cheaper, printed solar cells
Semprius is one of a few companies focused on thin, printed solar modules — a relatively new technology that could save a tremendous amount of solar cell waste if widely implemented. The modules are considered “printed” because they consist only of a very thin layer of active solar cells stripped off the top of a normal solar wafer. Based in Durham, N.C., the company has raised $6.4 million in a second round of funding to… Continue Reading
Forterra raises $1.2M for corporate virtual worlds
Forterra Systems, a Menlo Park, Calif. company that creates virtual environments for corporations, government agencies and health care organizations, has brought in $1.2 million of what it hopes will soon be a $2.7 million round of capital, reports VentureWire. This is a much lower amount than the $10 million the company said it had secured from In-Q-Tel, Chichen Itza Ventures, Jerusalem Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures last February.
The company was founded as part of… Continue Reading
Cloud provider Cassatt sells out to CA to avoid bankruptcy
Cassatt, the San Jose, Calif.-based provider of cloud computing environments, has sold its assets to public IT management firm CA for an undisclosed sum. The company has been in trouble for a while now, announcing its intentions to find a buyer back in April after burning thround $100 million in venture capital.
CA will also inherit select employees from Cassatt. The cloud company had been backed by Hewlett-Packard, In-Q-Tel, New Enterprise Associates, Portcullis Partners, Quatris Fund… Continue Reading
The forest has…ears? CIA invests in ImageTree
updated
ImageTree, a company that says it can measure and track forests down to the species type of individual trees, said it has received an undisclosed strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, the investment firm founded by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Why would In-Q-Tel invest in a technology used primarily by the foresting industry? Well, In-Q-Tel isn’t saying much. But there are two possible areas of interest. First, ImageTree, based in West Virginia, can track growth of illicit crops…. Continue Reading
Cloud provider Cassatt close to evaporating
Cassatt, one of the first companies in the cloud computing space, may have to shutter after spending its full $100 million in venture capital and failing to find an appropriate buyer, reports VentureWire. If one can’t be found, the San Jose, Calif. firm will be forced to declare bankruptcy.
Focused primarily on management of virtual data centers, Cassatt previously took capital from Hewlett-Packard, In-Q-Tel, New Enterprise Associates, Portcullis Partners, Quatris Fund and Warburg Pincus.
Infinite Power gears up with $13M for thin-film batteries
Infinite Power Solutions, a developer of rechargeable thin-film batteries, has announced that it took $13 million in second-round financing to scale production of its Thinergy line of cells — said to be thinner, more flexible and more energy-efficient than other solid-state batteries on the market.
The Littleton Colo. company says its long-lasting Thinergy technology is best used to store power derived from solar, thermal, magnetic and vibrational sources — making it a potentially key component for… Continue Reading
Gilman Louie on the great lies of venture capitalists and why it’s still a good time to start a company
When times get bad, it pays to have a sense of humor.
That’s a hallmark of Gilman Louie, a celebrated video game geek and seasoned venture capitalist. He was chief executive of MicroProse, a seminal simulation game company that made flight simulations such as the Falcon series. He was also more recently the founder of In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital arm in Silicon Valley. While at In-Q-Tel, he did 61 deals. He used to… Continue Reading
T2 Biosystems brings in $10.8M for diagnostics
T2 Biosystems, a company working to develop new diagnostic methods, received $10.8 million in second-round financing from new investors In-Q-Tel (which also helps fund the CIA, incidentally) and Partners Healthcare, and existing investors Flagship Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners and Polaris Venture Partners.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company plans to use the new money to develop a beta version of a device combining MRI properties and nanotechnology and to run it through a series of tests over the… Continue Reading
Nextreme Thermal raises $13M for chip cooling tech
Excessive heat on semiconductors and other electronics has led the tech industry to adopt a number of clever but indirect work-arounds, but Nextreme Thermal says it can directly cool off specific areas that overheat.
The Durman, N.C. company uses the Peltier Effect to cool down devices, which uses flowing electrons to achieve an effect somewhat similar to gas expanding. The movement of electricity from one part of a Nextreme-designed chip to another helps to dump excess… Continue Reading
The spy with the digital pen: Intelligence community invests in Adapx
Digital pen-and-paper maker Adapx has received an undisclosed strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, the independent investment firm founded by the Central Intelligence Agency. The purpose of the funding, says Adapx chief executive Ken Schneider, is to increase usage of Adapx’s Capturx platform (pronounced “adapts” and “captures,” respectively) in the CIA and the intelligence community in general.
Even as more documents move into the digital realm, there are still situations when you need good old pen-and-paper. For example,… Continue Reading
QD Vision raises In-Q-Tel funding for nanoscale LED tech
Yet another funding has joined the recent flood of interest in LEDs, with a Watertown, Mass. company taking an undisclosed amount for a “quantum dot” technology that can be applied to LED manufacturing, according to Xconomy.
QD Vision is using nanotechnology licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to boost efficiency, while simultaneously improving the color range the lights can emit when used in video displays. It hasn’t yet released a product.
The provider of the funding… Continue Reading
IBM and Forterra teaming up on virtual world for spooks
Even spooks need their virtual worlds. Where else, after all, could they rehearse their training missions against the bad guys of the world?
Forterra Systems and IBM said today that they’re teaming up to create virtual worlds for U.S. intelligence-gathering agencies. The so-called “Babel Bridge” project will allow spy agencies to use virtual worlds and Web 2.0 technologies to share intelligence information. Last month, Forterra raised a $10 million round (our coverage).
The project will feature a… Continue Reading
PurpleYogi, the 1999 personalization company, finally hits pay dirt
PurpleYogi, one of the earliest Silicon Valley companies to focus on “extreme personalization of the Internet,” has finally been sold for $158 million after a dramatic series of twists in business strategy.
The Mountain View, Calif., company launched in 1999.
It later abandoned its initial model of focusing on media and consumers, and offers some valuable lessons to today’s entrepreneurs focused on Web 2.0, who may also be panicking for lack of a business model: It helps… Continue Reading
Perpetuum pushes vibration energy, as does the CIA
Perpetuum is the the latest company hoping to harness an new kind of power source: Vibrations.
That’s right. Most vibrations caused by mechanical operations –caused in most places where equipment and people are at work — are wasted. Perpetuum, a London, UK company, transforms these vibrations into electrical power. It does this by hooking up a mechanical resonator to a microgenerator, which transforms kinetic energy caused by things like rumbling machines into electrical current.
It has just… Continue Reading
Roundup: Forterra, Appfuel, AOL’s plans? and more
Here’s a summary of the latest action. See below for more:
1) In-Q-Tel invests in Forterra Systems, a private virtual world creator
2) Appfuel, another Facebook ad network, but with better ad targeting
3) AOL to spin out advertising arm?
4) Project Playlist, for sharing music playlists on other sites, raises $3 million
5) Four Interactive, a local business review site, gets $10 million from Valley VC’s
In-Q-Tel invests in Forterra Systems, a private virtual world creator – San Mateo-based Forterra’s software… Continue Reading
CIA venture arm invests in video improvement company, MotionDSP
In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the nation’s intelligence services, has invested an undisclosed small amount of money into video enhancement company MotionDSP and also awarded it with contracts.
MotionDSP chief executive Sean Varah wouldn’t say what the CIA wants do with the technology. However, he said the investment lends credibility to the company’s technology, which was dismissed by Google during a pitch last year when Google told Varah that Google could something similar without MotionDSP’s help…. Continue Reading
CIA venture arm In-Q-Tel invests in video camera chip company, Pixim
Updated
Pixim, a Mountain View, Calif. company that builds chips for videos cameras that improve color, and reduce blooming and smear in bad lighting conditions, has added more money to its second round of financing.
In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the U.S. intelligence agencies, participated in the latest financing, the company said in a statement.
Tallwood Venture Capital, Ridgewood Capital and Mayfield Fund have also contributed to this extension of the company’s second round, an extension totaling $15.3… Continue Reading