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Emeryville, Calif.-based Adamas has been working in stealth mode for at least three years to develop an anti-viral drug for flu pandemics, including the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu). "A pandemic is a horrible problem to face as a healthcare system and as individuals, but you probably understand as a private equity reporter that it's an unprecedented opportunity to do clinical trials in a short period of time (because the motivation to find a vaccine is so high)," said Adamas Chairman and CEO Gregory Went. "More people die of flu than you realize." Adamas is working on a triple-combination drug to fight flu because all flus have grown resistant to single drugs, he said. A similar strategy was used against tuberculosis, HIV, Hepatitis C and other diseases.

Over a dozen IBM execs have descended on Sao Paolo this week to spearhead the expansion of Big Blue's venture capital group in Brazil. As part of an open house today for Brazilian venture capitalists, startups, software developers, academics and government officials, IBM is playing matchmaker and is holding an American Idol-style contest, also modeled on Stanford's AlwaysOn program, for companies to pitch themselves for funding, said Drew Clark, director of strategy for IBM's Venture Capital Group.

The company makes plastics from carbon dioxide and has raised $14 million in Series B funding, taking its total capitalization to $21 million. CEO Jim Mahoney said he started looking for funding in March to scale production of Novomer’s plastics into packaging, water bottles and other products that consumers use every day. Raising money wasn’t […]

Billionaire Richard Branson is collecting micro-pitches for startups today on Twitter, forcing entrepreneurs to summarize the most outstanding qualities of their babies in 140 characters or less. The best Tweet wins its author a trip to Los Angeles, where he or she can attend a conference — called PerfectBusiness — that Branson is throwing to […]

Potentially great scientific advancements, like the gene sequencing technology from Pacific Biosciences that attracted $68 million in funding last week — along with hopes from venture capitalists for a 10x return — fire investors’ imagination, but they’re not for the faint-of-heart. “Rarely does a venture firm produce a 5x return for investors,” said Lisa Suennen, […]

Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane says he had five term sheets and countless VCs interested in funding his company, which makes a Web-based help desk service that cuts the cost of customer support. He ultimately chose Benchmark Capital, which led a $6 million Series B round with return backer Charles River Ventures. Benchmark partner Peter Fenton will join Zendesk's board, and the company is moving from Boston to San Francisco, its second move in just a few months. (Zendesk started in Copenhagen and relocated to Boston earlier this year). Svane says that he hadn't intended to seek funding so soon. Zendesk raised its first round in April, and he expected to hold off on new money until sometime next year.

Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group is one guess. He raked in over $702.4 million last year, according to The Corporate Library, making him the highest paid CEO of 2008. Schwarzman vaulted past Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who made nearly $557 million, thanks in part to Blackstone’s June 2007 IPO. Schwarzman’s pay rose more […]

Here’s evidence from one venture capitalist, Peter Rip of Crosslink Capital, who’s been out raising the firm’s sixth fund. Although he held back specifics so he doesn’t end up in jail next to Bernie Madoff, Rip said fundraising is harder than it’s ever been  — even though Crosslink has done well in the last 10 […]

Pacific Biosciences’ whopping $68 million in funding this week is supposed to take the gene sequencing company out of R&D mode and into product mode and is a hedge against a possible downturn in the fall, said Bill Ericson at Mohr Davidow, which has invested in all five of the company’s rounds. “It was a […]

PolyFuel had what it called “breakthrough membrane material” for portable fuel cells that would allow laptops and other electronic devices to run — unplugged — for an unlimited amount of time if the user hot-swapped small cartridges of methanol fuel. Sounds great — I want one. But it’s too late. The company announced today that […]