Boston tech scene continues the deal momentum this week

Fresh off one of the Boston startup scene’s most eventful weeks in memory, tech companies and industry leaders continued the momentum with a slew of funding rounds and acquisitions.

Here are some notable deals from this week spanning the cybersecurity, computing, and health tech sectors.

Akamai Technologies, the Cambridge-based content delivery company, said this week it will acquire Israeli cybersecurity firm Guardicore for roughly $600 million, as it seeks to grow its security business. Guardicore, which has offices in Tel Aviv and Boston, helps companies monitor inside their computer networks to prevent ransomware attacks and malware programs.

Boston cybersecurity startup Snyk raised $75 million in funding, pushing its valuation to $8.6 billion. The new money comes shortly after Snyk’s $530 million round in early September, and brings the total amount the company has raised to $850 million, company officials said. The latest round was led by Atlassian Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, and will allow Snyk to develop better security protections for software engineers who use its product to find and fix security vulnerabilities in their code.

Catalog, a Boston-based DNA technology company, raised $35 million in a funding round led by South Korea’s Hanwha Impact. The company, which seeks to store digital data in synthetic DNA, has now raised upward of $60 million since it was founded in 2016 by MIT scientists. Catalog will use the funding to advance its computing platform, which could reduce the amount of energy required to store data using DNA.

The Fall River cybersecurity company SecZetta raised $20.5 million in a funding round led by SYN Ventures and MassMutual Ventures. The company, which helps clients prevent security breaches that may arise from their external contractors, has raised $30 million to date, according to PitchBook. It was founded in 2006 by David Pignolet, a former Massachusetts Air Force National Guardsman who specialized in combat communications.

Vesper, a Boston-based microphone-tech company backed by Amazon, raised $18 million, bringing its total funding to $73 million. The round was led by Accomplice, and included Amazon’s Alexa Fund and speaker company Bose. Vesper will use the money to expand its production of smart microphones and expand into new product markets, company officials said.

The Boston-based health care analytics company Pangalo said this week it will be acquired by Managed Markets Insight & Technology and Evaluate, two companies that combined last month to become a $1.6 billion pharmaceutical commercial intelligence provider. The acquisition will allow pharmaceutical companies to better analyze and decide on the effectiveness of new treatments, Pangalo officials added.

By MIT Sloan CDO
MIT Sloan CDO