Cortera Raises $8 Million in Venture Capital - Quincy, MA

Cortera, a Quincy-based provider of credit and collections workflow management software, has raised $8 million in a venture capital deal, which was led by CIBC Capital Partners. Cortera helps business analysts, sales and marketing experts and credit & collections professionals analyze their prospects, customers and partners. Fidelity Ventures acquired Cortera in 2006 and, along with Battery Ventures, provided $11 million in venture capital. Cortera, which was formerly called eCredit, said it will use the new capital infusion to accelerate its initiative to provide customers with "better, more actionable insights about companies without the hassles or high prices."

http://www.cortera.com/2008/04/cortera-announces-8-million-investment-led-by-cibc-capital-partners/

Theikos merges with Astadia - Southborough, MA

Astadia, Inc., a global business consulting and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions company, announces the merger of Theikos, Inc., a leading global developer and implementer of business technology solutions for the on-demand world (including Salesforce.com) into Astadia’s global operations.

http://www.astadia.com/about/astadia_press_release-global-operation-theikos.aspx

Geezeo Gets Strategic Investment from TheStreet.com - Framingham, MA

TheStreet.com, a financial media company, announced on Thursday that it has made a strategic investment in Geezeo, a privately held, Framingham-based provider of web-based personal finance content and tools. Launched in 2007, Geezeo allows users to track bank accounts and credit card balances, as well as investments, mortgages, student loans and auto loans. The Geezeo platform connects to more than 6,000 financial institutions. TheStreet.com's investment in Geezeo includes an initial funding of $1.2 million for a roughly 13% interest in Geezeo and the option to purchase the company based on an equity value of $12 million at any point over the next year.

https://www.geezeo.com/

Retail Convergence Inc. in Boston Raises $25 Million in First Round - Boston, MA

Retail Convergence, a newly formed, Boston-based, e-commerce company, announced on Thursday that it has raised $25 million in its first round of venture capital. In connection with the funding, the company has acquired SmartBargains.com, an "online, off-price" retailer of women's fashions and home accessories. Also on Thursday, Retail Convergence announced the launch of RueLaLa.com, "an invitation-only, private sale ecommerce site driven exclusively by user-generated membership." Investors in Retail Convergence include New England Development, Breakaway Ventures, Mugar Enterprises and General Catalyst Partners.

http://www.smartbargains.com

HealthEdge Raises $13 Million in Venture Capital - Burlington, MA

HealthEdge, a Burlington-based provider of claims and benefit administration, business intelligence and web-portal software products for healthcare payors, announced that it has raised $13 million of venture capital from Psilos Group. HealthEdge was founded by Albert Waxman of Psilos Group and Rob Gillette in 2004. In 2005, the company acquired over $100 million of intellectual property and other assets from deNovis. HealthEdge provides health plans, TPAs, PPOs and insurers software products that help them pursue new strategies focused on increasing revenue, decreasing costs and improving the quality of healthcare, according to the company.

http://www.healthedge.com/

Play Hard Sports Inc. Launches, Raises $5 Million in VC - Foxboro, MA

Play Hard Sports, a new, Foxboro-based developer and publisher of sports games and content for the Internet, on Wednesday announced the company's official launch, as well as its $5 million, first round of venture capital, which was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Play Hard was founded by Jeffrey Anderson, the former CEO of game developer Turbine Inc. Play Hard said it offers online, sports-related games "with no massive download, no long waiting for the game to load, and no required fees to play."

http://www.playhard.net/w3/press.html

Red Bend Software Raises $10 Million in Venture Capital - Waltham, MA

Red Bend Software, a Waltham-based developer of mobile software management technology, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $10 million in a venture capital deal led by Coral Capital Management. Other investors in the deal include Carmel Ventures, Greylock Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Poalim Ventures and Infinity. Founded in 1999, Red Bend said it will use the new funds for sales and marketing as well as to take advantage of new opportunities in licensing its software for other connected wireless devices such as mobile broadband PC cards, USB modems, embedded chipsets and M2M modules. The company also said it will accelerate investment in research and development for its software products portfolio.

http://www.redbend.com/news/view_article.asp?ID=528&TypeID=1

CentraScan Acquired by Smarsh - Stamford, CT

CentraScan, a privately held, Stamford-based provider of centralized email management and hosting services to hedge funds and other financial institutions, has been acquired by Smarsh Inc., an Oregon-based provider of email-archiving solutions for message compliance and records retention, legal e-discovery and mail server data management. CentraScan was founded in 2003 and focuses exclusively on developing technologies to filter junk mail and viruses. The company's provides centralized email services to small and mid-sized corporate clients. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

http://www.centrascan.com/

Health Plan One Raises $6.5 Million in First Round - Shelton, CT

Health Plan One, a Shelton-based, online marketplace for health insurance, has raised $6.5 million in its first round of venture capital, led by Pequot Ventures. Other investors in the deal include Greycroft Partners ; Kevin Hill, most recently CEO for United Healthcare Northeast; Chan Wheeler, former CEO of Uniprise; and Bill Sullivan, former president of Oxford Health Plans. Founded in 2006, Health Plan One offers an online platform for consumers to research and select health insurance plans from a range of national carriers.

http://www.healthplanone.com

Exari Group Raises $10 Million from Beacon Equity Partners - Boston, MA

Exari, a Boston-based provider of document assembly and contract life-cycle management software, has raised $10 million of investment capital from Beacon Equity Partners. The deal gives Boston-based Beacon a majority stake in Exari, which said it will use the funds for expansion in the U.S. Also, on Monday, Exari named Reg Foster as its CEO. Foster previously served as chairman and CEO of Alpine Access, a provider of Internet based call center services. Exari was founded in 1999. Its clients include large global companies such as Dow Jones, Marsh McLennan, Barclays Capital, Westpac Bank, DLA Piper, Mayer Brown, Perkins Coie, Addleshaw Goddard and the Australian Government.

http://www.exari.com/

Generate Inc. Acquired by Dow Jones - Maynard, MA

Generate Inc., a Maynard-based developer of business intelligence software, has been acquired by Dow Jones & Co., the New York-based provider of global business news and information services. Generate was founded in 2004 by Tom Aley and Darr Aley. The company's extraction and aggregation technology harvests company and executive data from the web and maps the relationships among the people and organizations it finds. Tom Aley now will lead Dow Jones Business & Relationship Intelligence as senior vice president and managing director, while Darr Aley will become vice president of marketing and business development at the new unit. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

http://www.generateinc.com/press-releases.aspx?id=37

Travel Ad Network Raises $15M in VC Funding - NY, NY

Travel Ad Network (TAN), the leading and largest vertical ad network in travel, announced today that it has closed a Series A round of financing. The $15 million round was led by Rho Ventures, Village Ventures and individual investors.

http://www.traveladnetwork.com/content/view/60/72/

Diligent Technologies Acquired by IBM - Framingham, MA

Diligent Technologies, a privately held, Framingham-based developer of data center management software, has been acquired by IBM for an undisclosed price. Diligent's data "de-duplication" software helps organizations reduce the amount and cost of physical storage required in data centers. The company operates a research and development facility in Tel Aviv, Israel. Diligent will become part of IBM's System Storage brand. This is the third storage-related acquisition for IBM in the past few months.

http://www.diligent.com/newsroom.php?id=19&sec=224

GamerDNA Raises $3 Million in First Round - Cambridge, MA

GamerDNA, a Cambridge-based, online community for videogame players, announced on Friday that it has raised $3 million in its first round of venture capital, which was led by Boston-based Flybridge Capital Partners. GamerDNA, which was previously called GuildCafe Entertainment, said it will use the funds to expand product development, open new offices in Cambridge's Central Square, and launch GamerDNA.com. The company was founded by a team of online media and computer games veterans from Eprise, New York Times Digital and Electronic Arts Mythic.

http://www.gamerdna.com/company

FilesX to be Acquired by IBM - Newton, MA

FilesX, a privately held, Newton-based data storage software company, has agreed to be acquired by IBM for an undisclosed price. FilesX specializes in continuous data protection and nearly instant data and application recovery software for enterprises and remote/branch offices. The company was founded in 2000 and is backed by a group of venture capitalists, including Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures and Genesis Partners. IBM said that the acquisition will complement its existing file-based software called IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files, which is targeted at small business customers and individual PC users.

http://www.filesx.com/news-events/press-release.asp?display=detail&id=56

Nuance to Acquire Needham's eScription for $363 Million - Burlington, MA

Nuance Communications, a Burlington-based provider of speech and imaging technology, announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire eScription, a Needham-based provider of computer-aided medical transcription technology, for $363 million. Founded in 1999 and privately held, eScription offers voice-recognition software that automates the process of medical transcription. In connection with the acquisition, the private equity firm Warburg Pincus has agreed to purchase about 5.8 million shares of Nuance common stock at a price of $17.36 per share. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

http://www.nuance.com/news/pressreleases/2008/20080408_escription.asp

OurStage Lands $13 Million for Online Talent Competitions - Boston, MA

OurStage, an online competition for aspiring musicians, filmmakers and comedians, has raised $13 million in new financing from over 100 angel investors, Tech Confidential reported. Boston-based OurStage's platforms let aspiring artists upload original music and videos, which the online community then votes on in the form of judging head-to-head battles. The site also sells music and other media, and offers prizes to contest winners such as opening slots for touring bands, or performances at festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival and Bumbershoot. OurStage recently signed a deal with AOL, which will promote contest winners on AOL Music.

http://www.ourstage.com

PowerSteering Raises $3.5 Million - Cambridge, MA

PowerSteering, a Cambridge-based developer of software for managing IT, product development and other strategic initiatives, announced on Monday that it has raised $3.5 million from MMV Financial, a Toronto-based-based investment firm. PowerSteering said that the funding will support several "customer satisfaction initiatives to improve performance for international customers in remote locations, strengthen 24 x 7 global customer support and worldwide hosting services, and facilitate new Enterprise PPM product enhancements in its upcoming Spring 2008 release." Also on Monday, PowerSteering named Michael Roberts as its senior vice president of worldwide sales. Roberts previously held management positions at Vignette, Primavera, Prosight, IBM and Sequent.

http://www.powersteeringsoftware.com

Imprivata Raises $15 Million in Third Round - Lexington, MA

Imprivata, a Lexington-based developer of identity and access management appliances, announced on Monday that it has raised $15 million in its third round of venture capital, led by SAP Ventures. Other investors in the deal include Polaris Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners and Highland Capital Partners. Imprivata said it now has more than 500 customers and 200 partners around the world.

http://www.imprivata.com/content13382

Mad Doc Software Acquired by Rockstar Games - Andover, MA

Mad Doc Software, a privately held, Andover-based developer of video games, has been acquired Rockstar Games, the publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, a New York-based developer of interactive games. Founded in 1999, Mad Doc Software provides game development services, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence and networking. The studio most recently worked with Rockstar Games on the Xbox 360 version of "Bully: Scholarship Edition." Terms of Mad Doc's acquisition were not disclosed. As a result of the acquisition, Rockstar has established Rockstar New England.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080404/20080404005671.html?.v=1

Lattice Engines Raises $1.7 Million in First Round - Boston, MA

Lattice Engines, a Boston-based provider of business decision analytics software, has raised $1.7 million in its first round of venture capital, led by Battery Ventures, according to a report by PE Week Wire, which cited a regulatory filing. Lattice Engines provides analytic software that helps customers maximize their return on sales and marketing investments. Our solutions combine advanced optimization techniques, and predictive analytics built on a very flexible data integration platform.

http://lattice-engines.com/

Vlingo raises $20M in Second Round of Funding led by Yahoo - Cambridge, MA

Vlingo, a Cambridge-based provider of technology that supports voice-activated access to mobile phone wireless data services, announced that it has raised $20 million in its second round of venture capital, led by Yahoo. As part of the deal, Yahoo announced that it has launched a voice-enabled version of Yahoo! oneSearch, a new mobile search client that supports "unstructured, open-ended" voice searches, allowing consumers to speak their query. Vlingo was founded in 2006. The company launched a beta version of its voice-powered interface last August.

http://www.vlingo.com/in-the-news.html

Collaboration Online acquired by mindSHIFT - Burlington, MA

mindSHIFT Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of managed IT and VoIP services, has acquired Burlington, MA-based Collaboration Online, Limited Company, a privately owned, rapidly growing provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Collaboration Online does business under multiple brands such as groupSPARK selling hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

http://news.groupspark.com/2008/04/01/mindshift-expands-market-reach-with-the-acquisition-of-collaboration-online-limited-company/