Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Startup MC10 boosts latest round to $15M, adds Windham as backer

By Rodney Brown

Ed. note: Updated with information about new investor, Windham Venture Partners.

MC10 Inc., a Cambridge flexible electronics startup, has added approximately $2.5 million to a funding round it reported in June, bringing the round to $15.1 million so far. Joining the roster of backers is Windham Venture Partners of New York, a company spokesman said.

MC10 added $2.35 million to the round that was reported in June as $12.5 million, and filed with the SEC as $12.8 million. While the filing did not identify the eight backers in the new tranche of the funding round, MC10 did say that the last tranche was led by Braemar Energy Ventures, with previous backers North Bridge Venture Partners, Osage University Partners and Terawatt Ventures participating.

Adding Windham to the mix of investors allows MC10 to tap into its expertise as a firm focused on bringing life sciences technologies to commercialization, the company said. According to the spokesman, MC10 wasn't just looking for money in this Series B round, but also experience in the medical sectors it is trying to reach.

MC10 has now raised at least $18.5 million from institutional investors, counting the initial Series A round that was bumped up to $6 million in July of last year. The company was co-founded by John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and George Whitesides of Harvard University. In addition to the venture funding, MC10 has taken in “significant funding” from the Navy and ARPA-E.

In May of 2010, it was reported that MC10 was working with Cambridge nonprofit Diagnostics for All on simple, low-cost, point-of-care diagnostics for use in emerging countries. MC10 has said it is “currently developing products for the sports, military and biomedical fields and has initial partners including Reebok and Massachusetts General Hospital.”