Tag: entrepreneurs
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Biotech Start-Up Lands $15M Series A Round
Allena Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts, a biotechnology start-up company, says it has secured $15 million in Series A venture capital financing, the first round of funding after seed capital. The company was founded by Alexey Margolin and Robert Gallotto, former executives at Alnara Pharmaceuticals that was acquired by Eli Lilly and company in July…
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GSK to Fund Canadian Life Sciences Start-Ups, Institutes
The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Inc. (GSK) announced in Toronto a new $50 million fund for early stage life sciences research in Canada. GSK says the Canada Life Sciences Innovation Fund will identify investment opportunities at Canada’s academic and health institutions, translational research centers, and start-up companies. Paul Lucas, president of GlaxoSmithKline Canada, calls the…
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Diagnostics Company Lands $20 Million Investment Round
NanoString Technologies Inc., a Seattle-based privately held developer of medical science diagnostic tools, says it has closed a $20 million equity deal to finance the company’s continued growth. The series D round — the company’s fourth funding cycle after start-up — includes the first investment by GE’s healthymagination Fund. NanoString Technologies makes molecular diagnostic equipment…
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NSF Award to Help Commercialize Implanted Medication Pump
A biomedical engineering professor at University of Southern California in Los Angeles has received an Innovation Corps award from National Science Foundation to help bring to market research from her lab. The six-month $50,000 grant — one of the first group of Innovation Corps awardees announced last month by NSF — will help USC’s Ellis…
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Q3 Venture Investments Rise in China, Decline in Europe
Venture capital (VC) investments, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, moved in opposite directions in China and Europe during the third quarter of 2011. Dow Jones VentureSource is a database of investments from 67,000 venture-backed companies in North America, Europe, Israel, China, and India. In the third quarter, investors put $1.3 billion into 89 deals for…
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Fund to Back Independent, Early Stage Science Companies
Entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel has started Breakout Labs, a funding source to help independent scientists and early-stage companies develop their most radical ideas. Thiel announced Breakout Labs last night at a meeting of Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students in California. Thiel aims to provide financing for visionaries whose ideas are too ahead of…
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U.S. Venture Investments Up in Q3, Science Companies Mixed
Dow Jones VentureSource reports that venture capital (VC) investment in the U.S. rose in the third quarter of 2011 compared to 2010, including the number and size of deals and investment volume. Among science-based companies, medical device and energy companies gained in investment deals and volume. Among biotech and pharmaceutical companies, the number of deals…
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Investment Fund to Back Health Cost-Cutting Technologies
The West Health Investment Fund, an angel capital enterprise in San Diego, unveiled its first set of investments and plans to support other entrepreneurs developing health care technologies and services designed to lower the cost of health care. Gary and Mary West, who established the fund, expect to invest $100 million in early-stage companies. The…
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Diagnostics Start-Up Closes $33.5M Early-Stage Financing
Foundation Medicine Inc., a developer of cancer genome diagnostics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has expanded its early stage financing to $33.5 million, adding new venture investors. The additional financing is expected to help the company continue its research work on cancer diagnostic tests. The new funding from Google Ventures and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield…
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Students Start Company to Commercialize Biochar Process
Students at University of Washington in Seattle are taking to market a new process to turn forestry waste into biochar, a charcoal-like substance that boosts agricultural yields. Their company, C6 Systems, is also a recipient of one of the first Innovation Corps grants from National Science Foundation. Jenny Knoth, a UW doctoral student in forest…