Adura raises $5M for wireless lighting
Lighting management company Adura Technologies took $5 million in a first round of funding co-led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and Claremont Creek Partners. The San Francisco firm will use its new funds to further develop lighting systems that can dim based on how many people… Continue Reading
Zvents, moving its events search to mobile, raises $24M
Zvents, a San Mateo, Calif. company that has been building an events-based search engine for several years, must be on the right track: It just raised $24 million from a set of investors including Nokia Growth Partners, AT&T and NAVTEQ.
What makes Zvents a bit different… Continue Reading
Anthera Pharmaceuticals raises $19M for anti-inflammatory drugs
Anthera Pharmaceuticals has raised $19 million in a second round of funding led by Caxton Advantage Life Sciences Fund and HBM BioCapital. Existing investors VantagePoint Venture Partners, Sofinnova Ventures, Pappas Ventures and Mitsubishi International Corporation also participated.
The San Mateo, Calif. company is developing treatments for… Continue Reading
Smartpen maker Livescribe gets another $7M
Livescribe, the maker of a high-tech pen that makes an audio recording of your conversation as you take notes, has added another $7 million to its funding, bringing its first round to a total of more than $30 million, VentureBeat has learned. Backers include VantagePoint… Continue Reading
Power control company iWatt gets $12.4M
IWatt, a Los Gatos, Calif. company that makes power control products, has taken a fifth round of funding for $12.4 million, led by an unnamed strategic investor.
The products that iWatt makes include AC-DC and DC-AC power supplies, coupled inductors and other power devices, and it… Continue Reading
VantagePoint Venture Partners adds former CIA director, analyst to cleantech team
Two new members have joined VantagePoint Venture Partners. Coming onto the cleantech investment team are R. James Woolsey, a new venture partner, and David Edwards, who will be a partner.
Woolsey served as the Director of the CIA in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1995,… Continue Reading
Google joins in $115M investment into solar thermal company, BrightSource
BrightSource Energy, an Oakland, Calif., solar thermal startup, has landed a hefty $115 million funding round from investors including Google to develop its solar power tower technology.
Solar thermal technology is one the leading hopes for alternative energy. It uses like mirrors and lenses to boil… Continue Reading
BridgeLux, a high-efficiency LED maker, adds on $40M
BridgeLux has secured a hefty $40 million round to use for product development and expansion, despite facing ongoing patent litigation from giant LED maker Cree.
BridgeLux, like Cree, makes the chip that is the light-emitting part of LEDs, which it then sells to other firms. The… Continue Reading
Brightsource lands the largest solar deal yet
When we talk about solar power projects, the cost is generally counted in the millions, not billions, of dollars. But a new deal between the California utility PG&E and a solar thermal company heralds the next age of renewable energy, when capital begins to flow… Continue Reading
Mascoma takes on $50 million more for cellulosic ethanol
Mascoma, an East Coast biofuel startup with a multi-pronged approach to commercializing cellulosic ethanol, has just become one of the most heavily funded companies of its kind with a $50 million funding reported by peHUB.
Based in Cambridge, Mass., Mascoma is in the process of building… Continue Reading
Livescribe, the pen with ears, gets big boost
Livescribe, the company that has developed a computer pen that listens to what is said when you are using it, and which will let you post to your blog straight from your paper, has gotten $23.2 million in venture financing.
On Monday, at the DEMO conference,… Continue Reading
VeriSilicon raises $20M more for chip design technology
VeriSilicon Holdings, a provider of a “system-on-a-chip” design technology, said it has raised US$20 million in a fourth round of financing.
The company is based in Santa Clara, Calif, with operations in Shanghai, China.
The company has now raised US$58 million since it was founded in 2001.
From… Continue Reading
YouMail, for customized voice mail, raises $4.5M
Need a customized voicemail message for when your sweetie calls your cell? YouMail can handle that, although we’re not sure what makes the company compelling enough to take $4.5 million in funding.
The “killer feature” here seems to be the ability to set special messages for… Continue Reading
Agassi raises $200M for electric car company, Better Place
When Shai Agassi departed software giant SAP AG in March, it surprised many people because he was on track to become chief executive of the giant company.
He left declaring bold plans to help convert his native Israel and its neighbor Jordan into gasoline-free economies with… Continue Reading
Roundup: Google’s space-algae plans, Visto’s cries IPO, more
Here’s the latest action:
1)Google’s hires astronaut, funds algae-in-space research
2) Google slowly but surely moves apps to work offline
3) AdaptiveBlue makes its “Smart Links” smarter
4) YieldBuild wants to improve the placement and color of text ads
5) Technology to let machines drive cars is six to eight… Continue Reading
Roundup: Dash Navigation, Flock, Greenspan’s tell-all, and more
Here’s the latest action:
1) Dash Navigation opens platform
2) Flock releases new browser, with Facebook in sidebar
3) Patriots successfully sue ticket scalper, StubHub
4) Google’s great quarter: Net income up 46 percent
5) Brad Greenspan’s tell-all essay on MySpace
6) Microsoft releases Popfly, allowing non-geeks to build apps
7) Comcast… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Friday, Oct. 19, 2007
Featured companies: DirectFlow, Direvo, Indigo Biosystems, MacroGenics
Direct Flow raises $27M for heart-valve implants — Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Direct Flow Medical, a startup developing heart implants, raised $27 million in a second funding round. Investors included Johnson & Johnson Development, Foundation Medical Partners, VantagePoint Venture Partners, ePlanet,… Continue Reading
Roundup: LGC Wireless bought, RockYou also bought? and more
1) LGC Wireless to be acquired by telecom components company
2) Rumors abound that News Corp. is buying RockYou for hundreds of millions of dollars
3) Myspace + Skype: newly-joined parts of the “Web 2.0 address book”
4) Apple finally decides to return developers’ love
5) Treemo, another mobile… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007
Featured companies: Ablynx, Bind Biosciences, Maas Biolab, Oriel Therapeutics, ThromboVision, Xcellerex
(UPDATED: See below.)
Contract biomanufacturer Xcellerex pulls in $31M — Marlborough, Mass.-based Xcellerex, a startup that provides contract “bioprocess” development and manufacturing, raised $31 million in a third funding round. Investors included VantagePoint Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins… Continue Reading
Solar cell company Miasole raises $50M
Miasole, the Silicon Valley company developing a new, flexible type of solar cell, has raised a significant $50 million in a fourth round of financing.
The funding deal, which comes after Miasole struggled to meet quality deadlines for its technology, was widely rumored to have been… Continue Reading