CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Who are the companies that will make or break the Boston tech scene? Well, if you look at private companies that have raised more than $50 million in venture capital, a few stand out. There’s HubSpot in online marketing, Jumptap in mobile advertising, Veracode in software security and Wayfair in e-retail. They’re all pretty far along, and all are trying to transform their sectors or create new markets. Together, they’ll help define the future of the tech industry in Massachusetts — whether or not they succeed.
 
Meanwhile, in life sciences news, Waltham-based ImmunoGen has started human trials of a new treatment for ovarian cancer. The company has plenty of big pharmaceutical partners like Genentech, but it owns the new drug all by itself.
 
Our deal of the week is a $12 million venture round for Paydiant, a mobile software startup in Wellesley, Mass., that helps banks and retailers handle transactions by cell phone.
 
And lastly, one more make-or-break company from the local tech scene. Kayak, the online travel firm based in Connecticut and Concord, Mass., is getting ready to raise more than $80 million in an IPO that could hit as early as next week. Let’s hope there are no more sharks in the water by then.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 

Ads, ads, everywhere. (Jumptap)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — There’s a lot of activity in mobile advertising again. Jumptap, a Boston-area mobile tech company, has raised a new venture round that brings its total funding to over $120 million. The rumor around town is that the company will either go public or get acquired by someone like Amazon.com. In the past 5 years, Boston has seen a number of big mobile-ad acquisitions, such as AOL buying Third Screen Media, Apple buying Quattro Wireless and PayPal buying Where.
 
Speaking of mobile ads, we’re keeping an eye on a new crop of local startups in the sector, including Session M, Adelphic Mobile, Celtra and CraveLabs, which helps businesses create mobile ads through Facebook status updates.
 
Our two deals of the week have to do with building the data center of the future. Burlington-based DynamicOps, an IT spinout from Credit Suisse, is being acquired by virtualization giant VMware. And on the networking side, Nashua, N.H.– and Cambridge-based startup Plexxi has raised a total of almost $50 million in VC funding as it goes after big players like Cisco and HP.
 
Finally, Avid, the Burlington audio and video tech firm, is selling off its consumer product lines to companies in R.I. and Canada. Counting a round of layoffs, Avid will lose 20 percent of its staff, or about 350 employees.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Companies are going public in Massachusetts. In fact, the first IPOs to list on the Nasdaq since Facebook are Bay State companies Tesaro, a cancer drug developer, and Exa, a maker of design software for vehicles. Both had modest debuts this week. But meanwhile, another recently minted public company is trying to create the future of retail. Burlington-based Demandware makes software designed to help brands and retailers reach more shoppers online. The company, which is valued at over $700 million, is going after fashion and luxury brands — avoiding low-end commodities, where Amazon is dominant.
 
In other innovation news …
 
A new report shows that in the first quarter of 2012, venture investing by corporations hit its lowest dollar sum in over a year. Massachusetts saw the majority of corporate VC money go to its health care startups.
 
Our deal of the week goes to Cambridge-based Seaside Therapeutics. The company has a new partnership with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to develop drugs for autism spectrum disorders.
 
And fellow Cambridge startup Nara Logics has launched a website that’s designed to work like the human brain. It adapts to consumers’ preferences to help them discover new restaurants. Sounds like it could ­help us all branch out a bit this weekend.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can playing video games make you healthier? That’s the idea behind the “gamification” of health care, a big trend we’re seeing in the Boston tech scene and beyond. Companies and apps are using techniques from the gaming world to help people improve their health and fitness. For example, GymPact uses cash to motivate people to exercise. Healthrageous helps companies provide personalized fitness advice. And MeYou Health uses social-gaming rewards to help employers promote healthy behaviors. If all else fails, of course, you can try eating right and working out more.
 
Speaking of health care, the Biotechnology Industry Organization reports that the number of life sciences jobs in Massachusetts rose 3.4 percent from 2007 to 2010, even as national employment in the industry fell by 1.4 percent during the recession.
 
Our deal of the week is a $30 million funding round for Rethink Robotics, formerly known as Heartland Robotics. The Boston startup has raised more than $60 million to develop a new type of robot for manufacturing.
 
And finally, a N.H. company called Juliet Marine Systems claims to have built the world’s fastest underwater vehicle. The ship uses “supercavitation” — a big bubble around its hull — to reduce friction and glide through the waves. Sounds like a pretty good way to beat the heat this week.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can anyone make a battery that’s durable and lasts longer than the status quo? A123 Systems thinks it can — and just in time. The Boston-area cleantech company has been struggling with layoffs and lost revenues, but says it has a new lithium-ion battery that is better and cheaper for electric vehicles. The technology could also be used to store energy for the electric grid. A123 plans to hire 400 new workers in Michigan, as it ramps up production in a tough climate for energy companies.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Waltham-based Constant Contact is expanding in Web marketing with its acquisition of New York startup SinglePlatform, which helps restaurants and businesses list their menus and products online. The acquisition could be worth up to $100 million including earn-outs.
 
Our deal of the week goes to Boston-based Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a developer of drugs for diabetes and obesity. The two-year-old company has raised $25 million in new venture funding.
 
And Ministry of Supply, a startup out of MIT, has launched a campaign on the Kickstarter website to support production of its high-tech, thermal-regulating dress shirts. It joins Blank Label as another local apparel company using crowd-sourced funding to roll out new products. 
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can Massachusetts own the emerging field of “big data”? That’s a buzz phrase for systems that make sense of huge amounts of information generated in markets like telecom, retail and social media. This week, Gov. Deval Patrick announced a new initiative that includes forming a big-data industry consortium, creating a matching-grant program for universities and supporting a tech-community space called HackReduce in Cambridge. Intel is also committing $12.5 million to support big-data research at MIT. This could all help revitalize the state’s tech economy — as long as big data doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own hype.

In other innovation news …

Vertex Pharmaceuticals revealed it had mistakenly overstated the benefit of an experimental treatment for cystic fibrosis when reporting on a clinical trial in early May. Vertex stock took a 21 percent tumble on the news but has since made up some of that ground.

Our deal of the week goes to GreenBytes, a data storage company in R.I. that raised $12 million in a round led by Al Gore’s venture firm, Generation Investment Management.

And finally, the startup accelerator MassChallenge has named 125 finalists for its third annual program in Boston, choosing from more than 1,200 applicants. It remains to be seen how many of the eventual winners will end up working on … big data.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — What’s catching Bill Gates’ attention these days? Liquid Metal Battery, a local startup spun out of MIT. Its technology could help the grid make better use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar and bring electricity to parts of the world that don’t have it, according to CEO Phil Giudice. The startup announced this week that it raised $15 million in new funding from Gates, the energy company Total and Khosla Ventures — a West Coast firm that Giudice says focuses on “clean tech with massive impact.”
 
In other innovation news…
 
It’s the end of an era for a Boston wireless-networking firm that started in 2001. Ember is being acquired by Texas-based Silicon Laboratories for $72 million, but will continue working in the energy and security markets.
 
Cambridge-based Recorded Future raised $12 million in venture funding to help organizations make decisions based on the Web. The company’s software tries to predict everything from the stock market to civil unrest.
 
And last week we told you about Thomas Massie, the MIT entrepreneur running for Congress. Well, he won the Republican primary in Kentucky this week, which means he’s a heavy favorite to make it to Capitol Hill. We’ll be watching to see if other techies follow his lead.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

Technologist-turned-politician Thomas Massie. (Gene Linzy)

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Boston-area whiz kid starts a tech company and then moves West to seek fame and fortune. No, I’m not talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s monumental IPO. I’m talking about Thomas Massie, an MIT grad who founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s. SensAble was recently acquired, but Massie has gone on to become a Tea Party political hero in his home state of Kentucky. He’s now running for Congress and is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in next week’s primary. Massie credits former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, a fellow MIT grad, for inspiring him to get into politics as an engineer.
 
In other innovation news …
 
Biotech firm Promedior, a maker of treatments for tissue damage known as fibrosis, is moving its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Boston and has hired a veteran of the Irish drug giant Shire as its new CEO.
 
MIT has elected provost L. Rafael Reif as its 17th president. The university also named Web startup CloudTop the winner of its $100K business plan competition and got a nice nod from U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park. At the finale event, Park said the U.S. government was taking a play from MIT’s book by holding its own entrepreneurship competitions. If so, they might want to look out for a certain MIT grad from Kentucky, if he ends up making it to Washington, D.C.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If you’re sick of hearing about Facebook’s IPO and Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie, you’ll be glad to know the social network has some stiff competition in emerging areas. One of them is social commerce. A number of Boston-area companies, including CustomMade, Daily Grommet and Krush, are trying to give consumers new ways to shop for, discover and even create new products online. They’re not Facebook competitors yet, but their progress suggests the social-networking giant will face big challenges as it looks for new revenue streams.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Shares of Vertex Pharmaceuticals hit a 52-week high after the Cambridge-based biotech indicated its cystic fibrosis treatment could benefit many more patients when combined with another experimental drug.  
 
Speaking of drugs, Eleven Biotherapeutics and mobile advertising startup SessionM have more in common than you might think. Each company has just raised $20 million in venture funding this week.
 
And finally, what do you call startup founders who did exactly what they set out to do? Liars, says Len Schlesinger, the president of Babson College and co-author of a new book called "Just Start." Schlesinger said if entrepreneurs told their company stories the way they actually happened, it would lead to “less hero worship.” And maybe, just maybe, less hoodie-wearing, too.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If you think there’s a bubble in higher education, well, it just might burst in Boston. Harvard and MIT have started a $60 million project, called edX, to offer free courses online and to study how students learn on the Web. It’s one of several big efforts around the country aimed at lowering barriers to top-tier education. And it fits with Boston’s growing ed-tech cluster, which includes companies like Alleyoop, Boundless Learning and TenMarks. Time will tell whether the Web causes radical changes in universities; but tuition costs aren’t going down anytime soon.

In other innovation news...

Jennifer Chayes, the managing director of Microsoft Research New England, will also lead the company’s newest lab in New York. Three former Yahoo scientists are founding researchers at the new lab, and will study the intersection of computer science and social science.

Our deal of the week goes to Hologic, a Bedford-based women’s health company that’s acquiring San Diego’s Gen-Probe for $3.7 billion.

And finally, all eyes are on Silicon Valley as the tech world prepares for Facebook’s IPO. But Boston-area investor Bill Warner, talking about the significance of the local innovation community, says our nation’s first social network was launched on the East Coast and now has 300 million users. That network was created by the U.S. Constitution.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s been one year since Google completed its $700 million acquisition of ITA Software. The Cambridge tech company is widely seen as crucial to Google’s strategy in online travel. But from talking to the search giant and its competitors, it now appears that Google’s business is less about helping you find cheap airfares online, and more about managing the travel experience from end to end — while serving up personalized ads and content. Google and ITA are building a new campus in Kendall Square that should be finished next year.
 
In other innovation news, a report by the National Venture Capital Association shows that in the first quarter of this year, seed-stage investing had its worst showing since 2005.
 
There’s still hope for young companies, though. Local energy efficiency startup CoolChip Technologies nabbed a $500,000 seed investment from Founders Fund, a San Francisco firm cofounded by Peter Thiel. CoolChip CEO William Sanchez first met the prominent Facebook investor through a salsa dancing connection.  
 
And finally, in a talk at the MIT Media Lab, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman argued that the explosion we’re seeing in social technologies is just beginning — and that their ultimate purpose is to help us be better humans. When I ran into him on the street, though, Hoffman was furiously trying to keep up with messages on two smartphones.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A couple of Cambridge companies are gaining ground with their regenerative medicine technology, which uses living cells and other natural materials to promote healing. InVivo Therapeutics says it will soon get the FDA go-ahead to start human trials of its implant for healing spinal cord injuries. Meanwhile, Pervasis Therapeutics, whose technology might help dialysis patients better withstand their treatment, is being acquired by the Irish pharmaceutical giant Shire. Both companies come out of the lab of MIT professor and prolific inventor Robert Langer.
 
In deals news, the venture capital numbers are in from the first quarter of 2012 and Bay State startups continue to outdo their rivals down the coast. In the last three months, VCs invested $650 million in 76 Massachusetts companies compared to just $333 million in 81 companies in New York state. Both states still trail California in VC investment, however.
 
And finally, what’s with all these companies looking to be Facebook killers? The social network is looking a bit vulnerable ahead of its rumored IPO next month. One local startup getting in on the action is Cambridge-based PowerInbox, which is trying to turn email into an interactive platform where you can access social media. Now if it could just get all of our inboxes down to a manageable size. …
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — While most of the tech world is talking about Facebook’s billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram, a couple of local startups in mobile and social apps are making some noise of their own. Boston-based AisleBuyer, a maker of mobile commerce apps, is being acquired by California giant Intuit, for a rumored price of around $100 million. And Charlestown-based Springpad has released a new version of its smart notebook app. The software lets you share and discover things like books, movies, and restaurants with your friends. It’s all part of a wave of companies trying to build more useful ways to navigate the Web — and the real world.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Cambridge-based Flagship Ventures and the Merck Research Ventures Fund formed a new partnership to bankroll startups that are developing drugs for unmet medical needs. 
 
Our deal of the week goes to Waltham-based Harvest Power, which raised $110 million in venture funding for its technology that converts organic waste to energy.
 
And in our “distinguished visitor” category, Web startup GrabCAD hosted Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the president of Estonia, at its new Cambridge office this week. GrabCAD has operations both here and in its native Estonia; to stay connected, the teams use another Estonian-born service called Skype.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A local tech startup is drawing the attention of some big educational publishers — and not necessarily in a good way. Boston-based Boundless Learning is being sued in U.S. District Court by Pearson Education, Cengage Learning and Macmillan, over alleged copyright infringement. Boundless makes a software platform designed to let college students access free online course materials. The young startup has just raised an $8 million venture round and is looking to disrupt the entrenched textbook industry, but it’s now clear that publishers are not going down without a fight.
 
In other innovation news...
 
Local video-game companies such as The Tap Lab, Harmonix and Fire Hose Games will be showing off their wares this weekend at PAX East, the big gamer expo that’s in Boston for its third year. 
 
Our deal of the week is a $37 million funding round raised by OvaScience, a biotech startup using stem-cell science to treat infertility.
 
And on a sad note, Boston-area life sciences entrepreneur Norman Priebatsch is missing and presumed dead after an April 1 hiking accident on Mount Washington. Priebatsch leaves behind a wife, Suzanne; his son, Seth, who runs Boston tech startup SCVNGR and his daughter, Daniella, who works at Google. He was 67.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — What’s so different about Kibits, the new social networking tool on the block? A focus on privacy, for one. Founded by Matt Cutler and Dave Greenstein, veterans of the Cambridge Web analytics company NetGenesis, Kibits makes a mobile app that lets users create private groups and share messages, documents and other media. Consumers control exactly what information gets shared with whom — so Kibits can be used to connect with friends, family and coworkers alike. It’s part of a new generation of smarter social consumer tech coming out of Boston firms like Springpad, HeyWire and FitnessKeeper.  

 
In other innovation news:
 
Sermo, the provider of the nation’s largest online physician community, announced it has hired health IT and software veteran Tim Davenport as its new CEO. Sermo founder and prior CEO Daniel Palestrant left in January to start a company focused on medical referrals. 
 
CloudLock and Tracelytics, two local business software makers, scored some early-stage funding this week.
 
And Third Rock Ventures co-founder Mark Levin says his Boston firm is “ultra-super-positive when it comes to innovation.” To get more life sciences insight from him, check out the Xconomy Forum on New England’s Emerging Biotech Stars. All the details on the event, to be held on April 4, are available at bit.ly/biostars.
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In the Boston tech scene’s biggest deal of the first quarter, Kiva Systems of North Reading is being acquired by Amazon.com for $775 million in cash. Kiva makes wheeled robots and software to move shelves and packages around in warehouses more efficiently. The deal is a strong return for Kiva’s investors, and it makes sense for Seattle-based Amazon, which is expanding its distribution centers around the country. The e-retail giant, which is also setting up an office in Cambridge, says it will keep Kiva’s headquarters in the Boston area.
 
In venture capital news, Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners announced the close of its third investment fund at a higher-than-planned $200 million. The local VC fundraising scene is heating up lately, with General Catalyst and Summit Partners also raising big new funds. 
 
And a new report shows that life sciences companies that secured funding last year were worth on average 10 percent more per share than in previous financing rounds. But that’s sluggish growth compared to what software, hardware, Internet, and digital media companies saw. The report confirms what’s been a lukewarm picture for life sciences financing, with many VCs slowing down their activity in the sector.  

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Could your child leave his next checkup with a prescription for a video game? Akili Interactive Labs, founded by Boston’s PureTech Ventures, is hoping its game — designed to treat ADHD, autism and the like — will be the first one approved by the Food and Drug Association as a medical device. Akili was co-founded by San Francisco-based neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley. It’s unclear at this point how the game will work, but Akili is betting it can improve cognition by tapping into the brain’s capacity to overcome interruptions through practice. That’s more than Angry Birds can say. 

In other innovation news …
 
Burlington-based Demandware is the latest local tech company to go public, joining the ranks of TripAdvisor, Brightcove and Carbonite. The e-commerce software firm raised $88 million in its IPO and is valued at around half a billion dollars.
 
Not to be outdone, Lowell-based semiconductor firm M/A-COM Technology (pronounced "May-com") has also gone public this week, raising over $100 million in its offering.
 
And our quote of the week comes from Ted Morgan, CEO of Boston-based Skyhook, who offered this advice for companies building mobile software, platforms and apps: “Google and Apple want to own the whole stack. It’s hard for startups, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”

p.s. Dr. Mario, anyone?

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — New England tech startups could be instrumental in changing the way companies market their wares in a digital world. Boston-based Brand Networks and Nanigans are making software to help companies get their stories out on Facebook, for example. And fellow Boston startup Session M has come out with new technology this week to merge advertising with mobile apps. All of this, of course, raises the question of how much big companies and brands really know about you. After all, the internet never forgets.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Two angel investing groups in Boston, Golden Seeds and LaunchPad Venture Group, were among the top five most active organizations in the past year, according to a new report. Nationally, the median size of angel funding rounds grew by 40 percent in 2011, suggesting that more capital is available for early-stage startups.
 
Our deal of the week comes from 4s3 BioScience, a Medford company that has raised $20 million to develop a new kind of drug-delivery system for muscle disorders.
 
And Boston’s mobile tech community is convening next Wednesday in Kendall Square for Xconomy’s fourth annual Mobile Madness conference. The event includes speakers from local companies bought by Apple, AOL and eBay, as well as some mobile upstarts to watch, like RunKeeper, LoseIt and LevelUp.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.