Which city is the better innovation hub, Boston or San Francisco? Well, if you’re talking about biotech and health care, New England has surpassed the Bay Area in terms of early-stage funding and number of startups.
Boston also has top anchor companies in Biogen Idec and Vertex, along with a Big Pharma presence in Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi and Takeda. All told, Massachusetts has close to half a million health care workers, so the industry is clearly a key to the business future of the region.
In other innovation news…
Newton-based Attivio has raised $34 million in its first round of venture funding. The big-data and business-intelligence company started in 2007 and has about 100 employees.
Our deal of the week is Boston Scientific’s $90 million acquisition of Burlington-based Rhythmia Medical, which could be worth an additional $175 million down the road. Rhythmia was founded in 2004 and has technology to help treat irregular heartbeats .
Finally, which Boston company is benefiting the most from the iPhone 5? That would be Gazelle, a 6-year-old startup that lets you trade in your old phone and other electronics for cash. Gazelle is one of the area’s fastest-growing consumer tech companies, and with new devices coming out every week, that shouldn’t change anytime soon. Unless, of course, people stop buying things they don’t really need.
