CV Ingenuity has inflated its coffers with a fresh round of venture cash amid development of its drug-eluting balloon technology. The Palo Alto, CA-based medical devices firm has raised $16 million in a Series B round of financing to fuel work on its technology for treating peripheral artery disease and to grow its management ranks.
New Enterprise Associates, which is new to CVI's investor pool but old hat at backing life sciences start-ups, led the second-round financing, which included funding from return investors BioStar Ventures, Synergy Ventures and Western Technology. NEA General Partner Ryan Drant and Justin Klein, a principle at the firm, are joining the upstart's board of directors in connection with the deal.
CVI is advancing a new approach to treating peripheral artery disease, which causes restricted blood flow in the arms and legs, increasing patient's risk of having a stroke, heart attacks and needing to have a limb amputated. In certain cases of PAD, patients get angioplasties that involve balloon catheters to open blood vessels and improve blood flow. CVI's system appears to be different, bring the benefit during procedures of delivering drugs intended to prevent blood vessels from narrowing. Procedures done with system, unlike some angioplasties, do not involve implanting stents to prop open diseased arteries.
"CVI is addressing an important and overlooked disease within a market that has an estimated $1 billion potential," NEA's Drant said in a statement. "They have developed an extremely sound technology platform and have a tremendously talented and resourceful team that is now in a position to expand and rapidly develop this promising device."
- here's the release