Fresh off the launch of a second, smaller iteration of its curved intramedullary fixation device, CurvaFix is facing a flood of venture capital—and has tapped a new CEO to help navigate the rising waters.
The equity financing clocks in at $39 million, CurvaFix announced Friday. The round was led by MVM Partners, while several previous investors also chipped in, including Sectoral Asset Management, which led the company’s $10.75 million series B round in 2020 (PDF).
With the new funding—which brings CurvaFix’s lifetime VC haul to more than $50 million—the Washington-based startup plans to expand the availability of its IM implants across the U.S., with the goal of creating a new standard of care for the treatment of fragility fractures of the pelvis.
Taking the helm as CurvaFix plots that course is Mark Foster, who has been named successor to Steve Dimmer, a co-founder of the company and its chief executive since 2017.
Foster boasts more than two decades of experience in the medtech industry. Early in his career, he spent seven years at Boston Scientific, including as a director of sales operations and training within the neurovascular division. He then moved to Smith & Nephew, where he spent another eight years working his way up to a stint as vice president of the sports medicine department in the U.S.
Most recently, Foster put in seven years at orthopedic diagnostics tech maker Trice Medical, where he started as chief commercialization officer in 2016 before adding the title of president in 2018 and, a year later, being promoted to CEO.
“When I left a large company to work at a start-up, I had hoped to acquire new skill sets that I could apply in my career. Mission accomplished!” Foster wrote in a LinkedIn post about his latest appointment. “The Trice experience has provided so many learning opportunities. I’m very grateful for the learning and the incredible dedication and perseverance [of] our employees.”
He continued, “Additionally, I am thrilled to lead the CurvaFix team through the next chapter of their journey. Steve Dimmer has built a great team, with a unique product in a massive untapped market (fragility fractures of the pelvis) and thanks to the team at MVM, we have the resources needed to deliver this technology to the market and help so many patients. Onward...”
Dimmer, meanwhile, will transition into a strategic advisory role, according to CurvaFix.
“It has been a privilege to lead CurvaFix from concept through commercialization to where it is today, and I am honored to pass off the reins to Mark for this next exciting phase of CurvaFix’s growth,” he said in the company’s announcement.
CurvaFix’s IM implants are billed as the only intramedullary fixation devices that are constructed in a curve to follow the natural shape of the pelvis. They’re placed within the bone canal in a minimally invasive procedure, with an aim of stabilizing a fractured pelvis to speed up recovery.
The initial iteration of the IM implant—with a 9.5-millimeter diameter—first launched in the U.S. in late 2021 after securing FDA clearance. A year into that rollout, in November 2022, CurvaFix announced that it had received another 510(k) clearance, this time for a 7.5-millimeter-diameter version of the device aimed at smaller patients; that implant began its U.S. launch in February of this year.