Shopify acquired Waltham-based 6 River Systems for $450 million. 6 River Systems makes robots for warehouse automation. The deal comes complete with the company’s robotics experts, some of whom worked at Kiva Systems before Amazon bought it. That gives Shopify a strategic boost in its ongoing battle with Amazon. [TechCrunch]
Akeneo raised $46 million to double its Boston team. Akeneo helps businesses present product details uniformly across sales channels. With this funding, the French company plans to strengthen its U.S. presence and add around 25 sales, marketing and support employees at its continental headquarters in Boston. [Built In Boston]
A biotech startup accelerator launched in Boston. Petri, a collection of foremost biotech entrepreneurs and researchers, will accept 10 aspiring founders into its program this winter. Each concept will receive access to a fully resourced biology lab, as well as more than $250K in funding and expert advice from Petri’s co-founders. [Built In Boston]
Twitter will open its first Boston office at Center Plaza. The social media company will join Grubhub and Spotify in the complex — check out the photos here. [Boston Business Journal]
Smart city company CIMCON raised $33 million to expand facial recognition capabilities. CIMCON started in 2012 as an urban outdoor lighting company. Now, it outfits city features like street lights and fire hydrants with cameras to collect data on the surrounding area — including civilians. CIMCON’s tech is already used in 170 cities and 24 countries. It will use this funding to add facial recognition and emotion detection to its list of offerings. [BostInno]
Boston training software provider Thought Industries scored a strategic growth investment. The funding, which came from San Francisco-based Luminate Capital Partners, will help Thought Industries bring on more customers who need customizable, monetizable training software. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. [Press release]
ClearMotion added to its leadership team. The MIT-born transportation tech company brought on Carl-Peter Forster to its board of directors and Christian Steinmann as CEO. Steinmann has held a variety of leadership roles in the automotive industry, including positions with BMW, GM Europe and Volvo Cars. He will replace ClearMotion co-founder Shakeel Avadhany, who will serve as chief business officer. ClearMotion makes proactive suspension and seating systems with software integration. [Press release]
