Apple’s latest product announcements are being felt across New England. Mobile payment startups like LevelUp and Paydiant see opportunity in having iPhones and smart watches speed up adoption of paying with your device. Meanwhile, health-and-fitness tech companies like RunKeeper and Quanttus have to be wary about the tech giant’s dive into health monitoring. In both cases, the innovation bar has been raised, and smaller companies will have to deliver more in terms of insights and results. But the real battle is probably going to be over who owns all the data---and who might exploit it.
In other innovation news:
— Security company CyberArk Software is getting closer to going public, setting some terms of its IPO that could happen this month. And app-security firm Veracode has raised $40 million more in the arms race between hackers and corporations.
— Our deal of the week is another $40 million VC round, this one for Flex Pharma. The Boston biotech, led by serial CEO Christoph Westphal, is developing new treatments for muscle cramps.
— And lastly, what do you get for that hard-to-shop-for tech CEO? Well, you might try a telepresence robot. The price of some robots has come down enough---to a couple thousand dollars---that local techies are starting to use them to meet with remote employees and even attend faraway events. That’s fine, just don’t give them your credit card number.
