Amazon acquires Cambridge cybersecurity startup Sqrrl
Amazon has reportedly acquired Sqrrl, a Cambridge-based cybersecurity company with NSA roots. Sqrrl was the second Boston-based startup to be acquired by the Seattle tech giant in the last few months, with Blink being scooped up in December. This acquisition comes at a significant time: Amazon has been considering Boston for its second headquarters and recently named the city as one of its 20 finalists after receiving over 238 proposals. For those who are unfamiliar, Sqrrl is a security analytics company that helps organizations to target, hunt and disrupt advanced cyber threats using its threat detection and response platform. [BostInno]
Paytronix raises $65M to help restaurants and convenience stores engage with customers
There have never been more ways to interact with your favorite restaurants and convenience stores, and no one knows this quite like Paytronix. The provider of SaaS customer experience management solutions raised $65 million in funding this week from Great Hill Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, signaling that the Newton-based company isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Founded in 2001, Paytronix has become a leader in the customer experience management (CXM) space, serving more than 330 customers and 16,000 store locations that have generated over $18 billion in guest spending. [Built In Boston]
Salsify has biggest hiring day ever
Salsify, a Boston-based company that offers e-commerce brands a product experience management (PXM) platform, had its biggest new hire day ever last Monday, onboarding 21 people. That means they increased the size of the company by nearly 15 percent in a single day. And that’s just the beginning of 2018. The startup's goal is to grow Salsify’s headcount by approximately 50 percent this year, and they are actively looking for candidates across 28 positions around the company, including product, engineering, marketing, sales and business development. To date, Salsify has raised a total of $54.6 million in funding, led by Underscore.VC, Venrock, Matrix Partners and North Bridge. [Press Release]
Deep learning startup Vyasa bursts out of stealth mode
Vyasa, a Newburyport-based provider of deep learning software and analytics for life sciences and healthcare organizations, burst out of stealth mode Monday by announcing the launch of Cortex, its scalable, software platform for data analytics and collaborative knowledge discovery. Cortex applies AI to organizational data, helping project teams to gain insights and make better decisions. With Cortex, the company hopes to capture hundreds of millions of dollars in thes healthcare and pharma markets by allowing organizations to conduct analytics on data relevant to their research. [Press Release]
Indico raises $4M for major sales and marketing push
Machine learning startup indico raised $4 million in funding last week led by Osage Venture Partners, which will go toward a sales and marketing push, as well as to extend indico’s product capabilities. The local startup helps companies harness artificial intelligence and machine learning to streamline data analysis and make crucial business decisions — regardless of whether employees have developed data skill-sets or not. [Built In Boston]
