Carbonite Inc. co-founder Jeff Flowers has stepped down as CTO of the Boston consumer data storage company and will be replaced from within by former architect and manager Eric Golin. Flowers will stay with the company as chief architect, said CEO and co-founder David Friend in an email. Flowers, who is on vacation this week... Read more
Category: Carbonite, Eric Golin, Jeff Flowers, Mass High TechZipcar’s bang-up initial public offering today has spawned all sorts of tech-press punditry. Some of it needs to be dispelled. Here are three myths about the Zipcar IPO that have little, if any, basis in reality... Read more
Category: IPO, Mass High Tech, ZipcarZipcar Inc. (Nasdaq:ZIP) shares spiked as trading kicked off on Thursday morning, following an initial public offering by the company that handily beat previous expectations. The stock was up 60 percent, to $28.89, as of 11:48 a.m. The Cambridge-based car-sharing firm priced shares in its IPO at $18 a piece. Zipcar said the IPO had raised $174.3 million, about 27 percent more... Read more
Category: IPO, Mass High Tech, ZipcarAccording to an analyst firm report, Iron Mountain Inc. plans to shut down its cloud storage offering by the first half of 2013, and it stopped taking new customers at the beginning of April. The report from analyst firm Gartner said that Iron Mountain Digital will be closing down both its Virtual File Store offering for archiving inactive data... Read more
Category: Iron Mountain, Mass High TechLike the companies in which they invest, venture capitalists are thinking outside the box as they seek new ways to boost returns and grow their own operations and portfolios. Setting up more in-house incubators for startups, expanding overseas, moving to a more distributed management, and supporting very selected “venture research” to solve health problems were among the strategies... Read more
Category: Flagship Ventures, Greylock Partners, Henry McCane, Mass High Tech, Noubar Afeyan, VC65Cambridge could soon elbow its way into the company of Google’s top three research and development sites. If Google’s deal to buy ITA Software Inc. for $700 million goes through, Cambridge would rival Seattle as a Google R&D hub. The Google-ITA merger - which today received approval with restrictions from the U.S. Department of Justice - would likely triple the number of... Read more
Category: Google, ITA Software, Mass High TechIn a partnership spanning 18 years and almost as many startup companies, Robert Langer, serial entrepreneur and MIT institute professor, and Terry McGuire, general partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Waltham, have devised a formula that improves the chances of an idea becoming a venture-funded company... Read more
Category: Mass High Tech, Polaris Venture Partners, Robert Langer, Terry McGuireTwitter co-founder and two-time Hub college drop-out Biz Stone will be the commencement speaker at Babson College’s undergraduate ceremony May 14, the Wellesley college announced in a press release today. Bill Drayton, CEO of the Boston-based social entrepreneurship accelerator program Ashoka will be the second commencement speaker on the day... Read more
Category: Babson College, Biz Stone, Mass High Tech, TwitterAfter helping online backup company Carbonite Inc. grow with an eye toward an initial public offering, former president and chief operating officer Keith Cooper has taken those startup skills to RatePoint Inc., where he’s been appointed president and CEO. He takes over the RatePoint reins from co-founder Neal Creighton, a 2010 Mass High Tech All Star... Read more
Category: Carbonite, Mass High Tech, RatePointBoston luxury private sale site RueLaLa.com will get a share of $498 million and some measure of independence in a $2.4 billion merger deal announced this morning between its owner, GSI Commerce (Nasdaq: GSIC) and eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY). EBay this morning announced its intent to buy Pennsylvania-based GSI, but the deal will carve out 70 percent of Rue La La... Read more
Category: Mass High Tech, Rue La La