What happened to A123 Systems? The Waltham-based lithium-ion battery maker filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 16, and plans to sell its automotive business to Johnson Controls for $125 million. A123 started in 2001 out of MIT and had the biggest IPO of 2009, but never became profitable. In the end, it fell victim to costly product recalls and low demand for electric vehicles. Which is how you go from a Boston success story to a pawn in the political debates.
In venture capital news, the third quarter of 2012 saw $847 million invested in 84 Massachusetts companies. The Bay State ranked second behind California and ahead of New York in dollars invested.
Our deal of the week is an $8 million financing round for GrabCAD, a Cambridge Web startup working on collaborative design software. It’s part of a trend toward social product creation and new tools for engineers and makers.
And finally, a new report says that “big data” will drive $96 billion in worldwide IT spending this year. In the Boston area, ScaleBase has just raised $10.5 million to enhance existing databases, and Carbonite is paying $15 million to acquire Zmanda in online data backup. You can catch Carbonite’s CEO, David Friend, at Xconomy’s “Future of Big Data” conference on Oct. 24.
