Boston Tech Watch: Actifio, DraftKings, WaveSense, BabelBark & More

August 28, 2018

Time to catch up on recent news from the Boston-area tech sector:

—We’ve got more details on Actifio’s recently announced $100 million funding round: nearly $59 million of that total was equity funding, according to an SEC filing. A company spokesman told Xconomy the remainder of the investment was debt financing.

—DraftKings is going on a hiring spree as it ramps up its online sports betting products following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May that opened the door to legalized sports betting nationwide. The Boston-based startup, one of the leading daily fantasy sports companies, recently opened an office in San Francisco and plans to open one in Las Vegas, according to a press release e-mailed to Xconomy. DraftKings also intends to open a new headquarters in early 2019 in Boston, where it currently has more than 500 employees. It aims to hire approximately 375 people in Boston over the next 18 months, a spokeswoman said.

DraftKings’ recent hires include a new chief marketing officer, chief product officer, head of commercial growth, and two leaders of the company’s new sports betting business.

—Facebook reinstated Crimson Hexagon’s access to data from its platform and Instagram (which Facebook owns), according to a Crimson Hexagon blog post. Facebook was reviewing how the Boston-based social media analytics firm gathers and shares user data. The issue was related to Crimson Hexagon’s government customers, which make up less than 5 percent of its business, according to the blog post.

“To our knowledge, no government customer has used the Crimson Hexagon platform for surveillance of any individual or group,” CFO Dan Shore wrote in the post.

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