Seattle's Mirador Biomedical has closed a $1.5 million Series B round of funding. The round was supported by new and existing shareholders, including WRF Capital and Summit Capital. The company will use the funds to expand sales of the first two Compass products and develop additional products, according to a Mirador release.
Founded in 2009, privately held Mirador develops the Compass family of medical devices. The lead product, the Compass Vascular Access, is a single-use device with an incorporated digital display designed to provide quantitative pressure measurements during the insertion of central venous catheters, according to the company's website.
"With strong demand from physicians for our two FDA cleared products and the recent addition of Steve Gappa as VP of Sales, the Series B will be used to drive direct sales as we continue to explore partnering opportunities to further accelerate growth," CEO Karl Schmidt says in a statement.
"We chose to lead Mirador's Series B round based on their impressive progress and highly efficient use of capital. With less than a million dollars, they obtained FDA clearance and early sales," explains Loretta Little, managing director at WRF Capital, in a statement. "Both the Series A and Series B rounds were oversubscribed, which isn't too surprising given their great market feedback and clinicians' enthusiasm for the Compass and its many potential applications."
Xconomy's Luke Timmerman, who profiled the company back in July, points out that many traditional venture-backed medical device firms are struggling with a more cautious FDA and other problems. Investors are seeking different models that don't require as much capital to create returns, he writes. At a recent conference, Versant Ventures' Beckie Robertson called this model "small ball." The model tends to work for companies that can take less time, consume less capital in development, and offer investors a chance for real--albeit small--revenues and commercial returns, she said.
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