Ajax Health, which helps build out and support other emerging medical device and healthcare technology companies, raised $120 million in a financing round to support its entrepreneurial endeavors.
The Menlo Park, California-based platform company’s new stakeholders include ICONIQ Capital, HealthQuest Capital, Polaris Partners, WTI and others. Ajax’s founding investors, KKR and Aisling Capital, also participated in the oversubscribed series B round.
“Their confidence in Ajax underscores the opportunity that Ajax sees to accelerate investment and innovation in an undervalued medical technology sector,” founder Duke Rohlen said in a statement.
Rohlen is known for leading peripheral artery disease firm FoxHollow Technologies and drug-coated balloon developer CV Ingenuity, selling both companies for a combined windfall of over $1 billion. Rohlen also served as CEO of nasal implant manufacturer Spirox, which is now part of Stryker.
“There is a significant need in the medical device space for capital to be deployed into differentiated technologies that leverage seasoned operational teams and rational business models,” Rohlen said.
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Ajax—formed in 2017 with a $95 million investment from KKR, Aisling Capital and Rohlen—provides C-suite management services, human resources and financial capital for its portfolio of companies, but does not host them in its own facilities, compared to an incubator. The endgame of Ajax’s tenure with a company typically culminates with a merger, sale or IPO listing, after working to derisk the product.
Currently, the company focuses on technologies related to the electrophysiology of heart rhythms, including diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as structural heart interventions and other cardiac subspecialties. Ajax is also eyeing opportunities in the ENT space, according to a company spokesperson.
Last year, Ajax invested in Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics, which raised $45 million to develop its ablation catheter for treating atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias. Those funds were slated to support clinical studies as well as regulatory submissions in Europe and the U.S.