Crocus snags $15.8M to develop magnetic memory chips

French semiconductor maker Crocus Technology has raised $15.8 million in second round financing, in addition to $4.1 million from OSEO, France’s public agency for funding innovation.

The company plans to use the round for continued development of its magnetic random access memory (MRAM) chips, which can store information using magnetic fields. These chips are less volatile, suck less power and are generally faster than the flash memory used in most computers and handheld electronics.

Crocus expects that… Continue Reading

Networking chip firm Arteris raises $7.5 million

Arteris has raised $7.5 million in a third round of financing to fund its networking chip technology.

DoCoMo capital came aboard as a new investor, joining existing investors Crescendo Ventures, TVM Capital, Ventech and Synopsis Inc. in the round, according to VentureWire.

Current customers include STMicroelectronics NV and Texas Instruments Inc. The San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France-based company designs a chip interconnect technology that it licenses to chip design and chip making companies. It allows them… Continue Reading

Life-science briefing: Friday, April 11, 2008

Life-science briefing: Friday, April 11, 2008

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Stent maker IDev Tech raises $25M (VentureWire)
Xytis gets $15M for brain-injury drugs (VentureWire)
Diagnostic maker Iris Biotech plans to go public, launch breast-cancer test (Edgar)
RiverVest Venture Partners raises $75M life-science fund (release)
Concentric Medical names Maria Sainz CEO (release)

[Note: I’m a little sad to announce that this will be my last life-science briefing at VentureBeat, although with luck, it won’t be the end of my time here. Starting Monday, I’ll be blogging regularly on the drug industry and… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Monday, Sept. 24, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Monday, Sept. 24, 2007

Featured companies: Adnexus Therapeutics, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cellerix, Elixir Therapeutics, GenomeQuest, Intronn, JapanBridge, JenaValve, VirXsys, Ysios Capital

[NOTE: This item is a catchup daily briefing originally posted on 9/27/07. I've edited the item's timestamp to preserve the chronological order of the briefings. --D.P.H.]

Adnexus Thera cancels IPO, sells itself to Bristol-Myers for $430M — Waltham, Mass.-based Adnexus Therapeutics, a biotech pursuing drugs against cancer and other diseases, said it would cancel plans for its IPO and instead sell… Continue Reading

The rush to people search: Viadeo, ZoomInfo, Yahoo China, Spock…and PeekYou

The rush to people search: Viadeo, ZoomInfo, Yahoo China, Spock…and PeekYou

For years, technology to search for people has been neglected, compared to most parts of the Web. Until now, that is.

A wave of new entrants are making it much easier to find out everything about a person, from their job, to their personalities, their age and even where they live. Forget the privacy implications, the race is on.

LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, had the field to itself a few years ago. Sites like Friendster… Continue Reading

Arteris gets $8.1M more for “network on chip” design software

Arteris, a Paris, France company that offers software for designing “network on chip” semiconductors, so named because they involve communications within a chip, has raised an $8.1 million second round of financing.

The company is moving its formal headquarters to San Jose, Calif., where is has an office.

The company’s statement is here.

The round was led by a new investor Synopsys, a semiconductor design company, while existing backers Crescendo Ventures, TVM Capital and Ventech participated.

Arteris has now… Continue Reading

Amgen snaps up another biotech startup, Alantos Pharma, for $300M

Amgen snaps up another biotech startup, Alantos Pharma, for $300M

Amgen suddenly has a voracious appetite for startups. In its second deal this week, the biotech giant acquired Cambridge, Mass., biotech Alantos Pharmaceuticals for $300 million in cash. (The release is here.)

Founded in Heidelberg, Germany in 1999, Alantos changed its name from Therascope in 2003 and moved to Cambridge in 2004. The company develops traditional “small molecule” drugs — that is, therapies that can be delivered as pills rather than shots — for a… Continue Reading