Paul Angott is an idea man. He holds 40 patents on products such as a clock thermostat, a wireless doorbell, and a laser-guided, unmanned mower for football fields and golf courses. Throughout his career, he’s launched five companies and raised more than $10 million for his various entrepreneurial endeavors, sold more than $100 million worth [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
OK, listening to Morphine’s “Cure for Pain” on Julie Kramer’s very last Leftover Lunch show on WFNX pushed me over the edge. In case you missed the news amid all the Facebook hoopla, Boston alternative music station WFNX is being bought by Clear Channel, and most of the staff is being laid off. The old [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
To whom much is given, much shall be required. Regular readers know that I’m not in the habit of quoting scripture. But this line found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke has a bit of new relevance this morning, as Facebook’s initial public offering—valuing the company at $106 billion at the opening bell [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Waiting for the biotech industry to advance new treatments for male pattern baldness (as well as female hair loss) might seem about as exciting as watching hair grow. But some people have a lot of skin in the game, if you know what I mean. More than just a few people, actually. San Diego’s Histogen [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
CardioKinetix has spent 10 years and $80 million in venture capital working on an implantable device for people with heart failure. Now it’s got some evidence that suggests it could be on track with a real product. The Menlo Park, CA-based company is announcing today it has passed a study of 31 patients who got [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Drugs, devices, and nonprofits showed up in this week’s New England life sciences news. —Promedior, a maker of treatments for tissue damage known as fibrosis, is moving its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Boston and has hired Suzanne Bruhn, a veteran of the Irish drug giant Shire’s Human Genetic Therapies division, as its new CEO. —Camb
| Xconomy | Technology |
So here is my obligatory post on Facebook…which will be the most spectacular IPO of a venture-backed company in the history of mankind…and it just priced tonight. The shares priced at $38 giving the company a market cap of $104 billion fully diluted, raising $16 billion in proceeds. Of the 421 million shares being sold, [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Yesterday, we published an article about why VC guru Jason Mendelson is feeling bullish about Michigan as a hub for entrepreneurship. He pointed out that the state’s tendency toward collaboration is an important asset that should continue to be championed. Vijay Mehra, CEO of Think Tech Labs, wholeheartedly agrees. It’s exactly the reason that,
| Xconomy | Technology |
Buried in the news of the past month, which was admittedly a busy one, was a press release headlined: “Geomagic Acquires Sensable 3D Design and Haptics Businesses.” As far as I can tell, no media outlets besides Xconomy picked up on this deal or its historical—and now, political—significance. Woe is them. That’s because “Sensable” woul
| Xconomy | Technology |
We’re anticipating a lot of news out of a big cancer conference that begins next week in Chicago. Here is your head start. —Cancer researchers have talked for decades about finding the silver bullet that could kill cancer cells without harming the healthy cells nearby. These days, the industry is focusing on the development of [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
A few years back, molecular geneticist Tom Maniatis was approached by a Harvard Business School student with a heart-wrenching story. The student, Avichai Kremer, then 29, had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kremer had an unusual idea: He wanted to advance ALS research by offering m
| Xconomy | Technology |
At a time when companies such as Pandora and Songza are trying to change the way listeners discover music, some hurdles continue to stand in the way of the industry’s evolution. In a relatively short timespan, music has graduated from digital downloads to live streams curated for listeners’ individual tastes. The pace of change may [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
From the moment Dendreon started in business 20 years ago, most scientists have said that if its immune-booster for prostate cancer was going to work, it would probably work best at an early stage of disease, before tumors had gotten too powerful for the immune system to contain. Today, Dendreon is offering the latest slice [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Aveo Pharmaceuticals is entering a competitive world for the treatment of kidney cancer, and it made a bold bet that its drug would prevail in the first head-to-head comparison of its kind against an active drug. Now the company is preparing to enter that competition with data that says its drug has a slight advantage [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
It’s old news that tech startups in San Francisco and Silicon Valley are locked in a fierce competition for the most talented engineers, product managers, and business development staff. But you might be surprised how far some companies are going these days to portray their workplaces as virtual Disneylands for employees. At a Tuesday night [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
It’s been an eventful 24 hours for MIT. The university held the finale of its $100K Entrepreneurship Competition last night, naming CloudTop the grand prize winner. The company comes from the Web/IT track of the competition and is developing an application allowing users to access of all their online content and applications through a Web [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
Ever get the feeling that social media services didn’t really think through the privacy and legal problems they might run into? Turns out, you’re probably right. Del Harvey saw it firsthand. When she joined the fledgling company in late 2008, Harvey quizzed co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams about how they might handle spam. “And [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
If the turnout at yesterday’s Michigan Growth Capital Symposium is any indication, our fair state is on the upswing. The conference, in its 31st year, had roughly 450 venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, academics, and government officials in attendance. Jason Mendelson, called “the Elvis of innovation” by this very publication, gave the keynot
| Xconomy | Technology |
Doctors often ask themselves, after a leukemia or lymphoma patient gets high-dose chemotherapy, whether they really wiped out every last rugged cancer cell in the patient. That’s always been a difficult question, but now a team of Seattle researchers is showing they might have found a powerful new technology to consistently deliver that answer. Sc
| Xconomy | Technology |
Whatever you do, don’t tell Kiip CEO Brian Wong that he’s in the advertising business. Yes, if you’re playing a mobile game that uses Kiip’s service, you’ll see pop-up screens offering rewards from big brands like Pepsi, Disney, and Best Buy. But these aren’t ads, Wong insists. They’re moments of reciprocity prompted by an achievement
| Xconomy | Technology |
Chris Lynch, the tech exec who said venture capital was not for him, is the newest member of the technology team at Atlas Venture, the Cambridge, MA-based firm announced today. In March, Lynch left his role as CEO of Vertica Systems, a year after the data analytics company was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $300 million. [...]
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What began as an effort by a couple of San Diego engineers to bring computer vision to the iPhone has resulted instead in “Skqueak,” a mobile app that enables users to sketch over photos and videos on their iPhones. The Skqueak app is now available in Apple’s iTunes App Store. Sanjay Nichani, who moved to [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
One of the big dreams in biotech over the past 35 years has been to make drugs that work like “smart bombs” by destroying tumors while minimizing collateral damage. Scientists have learned this is no easy thing, but now that a couple of these types of drugs have been shown to work, a new wave [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
With each new generation of television, broadcasters and marketers look for fresh ways to keep the audience invested in what they are watching. These days it is not unheard of for TV viewers to see discreet messages appear in the margins of their screens during broadcasts. If they click on these messages, marketing material or [...]
| Xconomy | Technology |
We saw deals this week for companies working on database, business intelligence, credit card processing, and security technology. —Hopkinton, MA-based data storage giant EMC (NYSE: EMC) confirmed its acquisition of Israeli flash-storage startup XtremIO. Other media outlets peg the purchase price at $430 million, though EMC has not officially reve
| Xconomy | Technology |