Provo, Utah-based Ancestry.com said Wednesday afternoon that it has named Dr. Paul R. Billings to the company's board of directors. Billings, who the company said is a "renowned genomics expert", boosts the firm's board to nine board members. Billings is Chief medical officer at life Technologies, and also has served at CELLective Dx Corporation and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings. Ancestry.com is a provider of family history and genealogy resources....Continue →

Phoenix-based DICOM Grid said Wednesday that it has raised $5M in an expansion funding round, for the firm's cloud-based, software-as-a-service for medical imaging. The funding was led by Canaan Partners, CHL Medical Partners, and individual investors. DICOM Grid, which is led by Morris Panner, said the funding will go to expand distribution of its products for managing diagnostic imaging and related health data....Continue →

Lafayette, Colorado-based Aegis Analytical, which develops manufacturing and process management software, said this morning that it has named Mike Neal as its new Chief Technology Officer. Neal has previously served in CTO roles at IHS, SAQQARA, and Requisite Technology, in addition to serving at Lockheed and other companies. Aegis Analytical develops softwar eused by manufacturers to manage their manufacturing processes.
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Screen protector: check; smart phone case: check; add-on Bluetooth keyboard, check; built-in pepper spray cartridge, say again? Think you're the mobile phone user every accessory under the sun? An Arizona company has come up with what might be the most unique (or at least, dangerous) mobile smartphone accessory yet, a smartphone case which includes a built in pepper spray cartridge....Continue →

Boulder-based Mocavo, which is developing an online genalogy search engine, is announcing this morning that it has raised $4M in a Series A funding. The round came from the Foundry Group. Seth Levine of Foundry joins the company's board as part of the funding. Mocavo is developing a custom search engine specifically focused on genealogy information. The company was part of the TechStars accelerator effort....Continue →

Salt Lake City-based online health social networking site Alliance Health Networks said Tuesday that it has acquired Medify, the operator of an online site which allowed users to learn more about disease conditions based on the experiences from other patients. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. Alliance Health said it will integrate Medify's technology across its portfolio of social health networks, a network of sites focused on specific health conditions....Continue →

What's Paul Ahlstrom, one of the founders of vSpring Capital doing nowadays? Kickstarting an entire venture capital industry in Mexico, that's what. In a fascinating story on Ahlstrom's journey from Salt Lake City to moving his family to Mexico, GigaOm talks about how Ahlstrom is pioneering the venture capital industry in Mexico, applying what he learned in Utah to create a entrepreneur and investing community in that country....Continue →

Provo, Utah-based Qualtrics, a developer of enterprise data collection and analysis software headed by Ryan Smith, has raised a huge, $70M funding round for the firm from two high profile venture capital firms. The round looks to be the largest venture capital round raised by a Utah company in years, dwarfing the amount of venture capital invested in the state over the last few quarters....Continue →

Boulder-based SolidFire is tapping a veteran of Skype and Avaya for its new Vice President of Engineering, the company said today. Skype said it has named Daniel Berg as its Vice President of Engineering, to head up engineering, development and quality for its solid state disk (SSD) storage systems. Berg joins from Avaya, where he was VP of Research and Development....Continue →

Denver-based TriZetto Group, the developer of healthcare management software headed by Trace Devanny, is expanding today, saying that its subsidiary Gateway EDI has acquired NHXS, a software firm that helps medical practices manage physician reimbursements. Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced by the company. TriZetto said that it will integrate NHXS's capabilities into its Gatway EDI solutions. TriZetto acquired Gateway EDI in February of 2011....Continue →

Scottsdale, Arizona-based GoDaddy announced today that it has awarded $100,000 in total scholarships, as part of its second annual Go Daddy .ME Scholarship Program. The domain name registration and web services firm said that it awarded $10,000 scholarships to ten different students to apply towards the cost of tuition and books this fall. The scholarship asked students to submit an essay on how the they’ve leveraged the power of the Internet in their education....Continue →