Lola signs 5-year contract with AmEx GBT
Lola is making a major play to disrupt the traveltech space with its latest news: a five-year contract with American Express Global Business Travel, the largest travel management company in the world. The deal is based on a revenue-sharing model that lets GBT purchase equity in Lola if the partnership makes money. It also means that Lola will not work with another travel management company, and GBT will not work with a Lola competitor. Lola will now be able to scale using GBT’s massive resources and global customer base. Not too shabby. [Business Travel News]
ClearSky Data raises $20M to accelerate sales
Storage is all the rage. Just ask ClearSky Data, a Boston-based provider of on-demand primary storage. The company, which offers offsite backup and disaster data recovery as a service, raised $20 million in new funding this week, bringing their total funding to date to $59 million. Ellen Rubin, CEO of ClearSky Data, said they will use the funding to expand sales and go-to-market initiatives, accelerate customer deployments and expand their footprint as part of a new partnership with the interconnection and data center giant Equinix. [Built In Boston]
WeWork and Bunker Labs launch veteran-focused initiative
Coworking giant WeWork and Bunker Labs, a national network fostering entrepreneurship among former military service members, announced a new partnership this week geared toward helping Boston-based veteran entrepreneurs. The program, called WeWork Veterans in Residence, will launch February 2019 at WeWork 745 Atlantic, in Boston’s South Station area. This initiative will involve providing fully sponsored workspaces, services and business mentorship. [Press Release]
Athenahealth to be acquired by 2 NY financial firms
Athenahealth announced this week that it is being acquired. Two NY-based financial firms are purchasing Watertown-based healthtech company and combining it with a healthtech company recently spun out of General Electric, called Virence Health. Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital said the deal, which effectively turns Athenahealth back into a private company, is worth $5.2 billion. [The Boston Globe]
Spin Memory raises $52M to deliver memory in the digital age
Between the world of IoT, self-driving cars and mobile apps, it’s easy to see that the technological world is changing at breakneck speed. In order to keep up with this digital transformation, however, the world needs a new way to store information. Enter, Spin Memory. The Boston-based company, which raised a whopping $52 million round on Monday, aims to revolutionize the semiconductor industry by solving memory challenges vital for artificial intelligence, 5G, deep learning, IoT and more. [Built In Boston]
CHAOSSEARCH scores $9M to streamline data storage
CHAOSSEARCH, a log search and analytics platform built for AWS S3, announced on Wednesday it has raised $9 million in a Series A funding. Founded in 2017, CHAOSSEARCH seeks to simplify data storage, management and analytics for AWS S3. The latest investment will be used to add depth to its engineering efforts and build out the baseline go-to-market sales and marketing team, said Les Yetton, the company’s CEO and co-founder. [Built In Boston]
DUST Identity launches out of stealth with $2.3M in funding
A diamond unclonable security tag, or DUST, is a a proprietary technology that uses nanodiamonds to create an secure identity layer on any physical object — and you’ll probably be hearing more about it soon. The maker of DUST, DUST Identity, launched out of stealth mode today, raising $2.3 million in seed funding in the process. The lean startup’s co-founder, Ophir Gaathon, said part of that funding will go toward doubling its team with hires in marketing, engineering and sales. [Built In Boston]
