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Tue. Apr. 03, 2012 Linear Retail Properties adds to its Hub portfolio with purchases on Congress and Newbury streets Linear Retail Properties has bought two Boston properties, one on Congress Street in the city’s Fort Point neighborhood, the other on Newbury Street. A Burlington-based real estate firm, Linear Retail purchased retail locations on the lower levels of 346-354 Congress St. for $4.8 million. Tenants include Menton and Sportello --- restaurants operated by uber chef Barbara Lynch. Linear also paid $2.25 million for retail space at 304 Newbury St. A UPS Store occupies part of that space.	Advertisement
Boston start-up takes on Groupon Boston start-up Privy publicly debuted its Web service Tuesday to give small businesses an alternative to “daily deal” websites. The company, which has four employees and was a 2011 MassChallenge finalist, has $330,000 in seed funding from investors such as John Goscha, the founder of IdeaPaint. It plans to open an office in Boston’s Innovation District.
Denham Capital raises $3b fund Denham Capital, a Boston private equity firm that invests in energy-related companies, said it has raised a $3 billion fund. Denham said its Fund VI is the largest of its kind to be raised since 2008. The firm is a spin-off of the former Sowood Capital Management, a Boston hedge fund that failed in 2007 and lost $1.6 billion.
AIM: Business confidence drops slightly in Mass. A business confidence index for the Bay State faltered slightly, posting a reading of 54.8 in March, down one-tenth of a point from the previous month’s reading. The monthly index is maintained by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, an organization of Massachusetts employers that is also known as AIM. Before March, the business confidence index had posted a string of four consecutive monthly gains.
Angel investments rose in 2011, UNH says Angel investors shelled out $22.5 billion in investment dollars during 2011, up about 12 percent from the previous year’s total, according to the 2011 Angel Market Analysis released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. Last year, 66,230 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding, an increase of 7.3 percent over 2010 investments, the center said. “It appears that an optimism in angel investing is taking hold,” the center’s director added.
FirstBest Systems raises $10m FirstBest Systems Inc., a Bedford company whose software manages the underwriting process for commercial insurers, announced Tuesday the completion of a $10 million round of funding. NewSpring Capital and Verisk Analytics Inc. joined private equity firm Brookstone Partners in the round. FirstBest said it will use the additional investment to expand into new segments of the insurance industry and to grow its engineering team so it can develop new products.
Eel market sizzles as prices hit $2,000 a pound in Maine A worldwide shortage has buyers paying top dollar for the baby American eels, which are imported in infancy from Maine to Asia to be raised in farm ponds. A pound of eels should be worth around $30,000 on the open market once grown to market size, according to one dealer. Prices fluctuate all the time, but nobody’s seen them shoot up the way they have over the past two seasons. Last year, at $891 per pound, elvers (or baby eels) became Maine’s fourth most-valuable wild fishery.
MIT conference will focus on how technology is changing the ways people and computers work together An upcoming conference at MIT is set to explore the possibility of creating a new iterdisciplinary field focused on issues related to collective intelligence such as crowdsourcing, on-line collaboration, animal collective intelligence, collective decision-making, and the wisdom of crowds. The title of this meeting is Collective Intelligence 2012, and it is scheduled to take place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on April 18-20. Topics for discussion include, “How do networks like Facebook and Twitter impact social movements?”
Natixis Global Asset Management launches ‘risk & volatility’ initiatives The Boston investment firm Natixis Global Asset Management said it’s launching new initiatives to help customers who are “anxious about risk and volatility.” The new program is aimed at helping brokers and financial advisers better manage their portfolios for risk. Called “Durable Portfolio Construction,” the program looks at asset allocation and is meant to “help investors minimize the impact of extreme market movements.” The firm also wants to help investors add alternative, hedging strategies to their portfolios.
Google signs lease, will bring ITA to Kendall Square campus Google Inc. will relocate nearby subsidiary ITA Software Inc. of Cambridge to its Kendall Square offices, where it has finalized a deal to create an 800-plus-employee “urban campus” that will become the search giant’s fourth largest US location.
In a win for tobacco companies, judge rules against Worcester ban on cigarette advertising In a victory for three of the nation’s biggest tobacco companies, a federal court judge has ruled that a Worcester ordinance dramatically limiting advertising for tobacco products is unconstitutional. Under the regulation would have been prohibited from advertising specific cigarette brands, such as Marlboro or Camel, on signs visible from the street. Signs could only note that the stores sold cigarettes. Worcester officials said the cigarette promotions were contributing to a high incidence of tobacco use.
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