The first full week of 2015 saw a string of noteworthy fundings for Boston tech companies, including several featuring prominent investors.
Leading the $2 million seed round for MIT satellite propulsion startup Accion Systems was FF Science, the science startup investing unit of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund; FF Science has backed just three startups to date, and two are out of MIT. Meanwhile, new investors for Rethink Robotics in its new $26.6 million round were GE Ventures (the venture capital unit of manufacturing giant General Electric) and Goldman Sachs (frequently the backer of companies headed for an IPO).
Here are the five key deals of the week.
| Company | Amount | Sector | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accion Systems | $2 million | Propulsion systems for satellites | Cambridge |
| CampusTap | $500,000 | College-only social network | Boston |
| par8o | $10.5 million | Healthcare IT | Newton |
| Rethink Robotics | $26.6 million | Manufacturing robots | Boston |
| SiteSpect | $13 million | Website testing/optimization | Boston |
In other funding news, we also got word that Boston startup Jana's new round came entirely from existing investors, who include Spark Capital and Publicis Groupe.
In addition, a California-based company with an office in Boston, Seismic, announced $20 million in Series B funding. The software-for-salespeople firm was founded by former executives at EMC Corp., which acquired their previous startup Document Sciences Corp.
