Volta Medical just got a major power boost: With the close of its recent series B funding round, the French startup has now doubled its lifetime fundraising tally.
The round clocked in at 36 million euros, or about $38 million, which will be used to help Volta continue developing its artificial intelligence software aimed at treating cardiac arrhythmias, according to a company announcement Thursday.
The funding was led by Minneapolis-based Vensana Capital, which closed its second venture fund with $325 million in 2021 and has thrown its support behind a handful of other heart-focused medtech startups including Cleerly and CVRx.
Joining Vensana in the round were Lightstone Ventures and Gilde Healthcare, the latter of which previously led Volta’s series A. That funding—which was announced exactly two years before Volta shared its series B news—brought in $28 million. As of this week’s update, Volta said its total haul has now surpassed the 70 million euro mark.
Volta’s flagship product is its VX1 software, which uses machine learning and deep learning AI algorithms to help doctors identify and label abnormalities in 3D maps of the heart in real time. Those annotations can in turn be used to improve the delivery of catheter ablation therapy to treat persistent atrial fibrillation and other complex arrhythmias.
The XVI technology has been cleared for use in both the U.S. and Europe since late 2020. It didn’t make its U.S. debut until about a year later, when a handful of hospitals in New York and Florida joined an international clinical trial of the software.
That trial is still in progress, with a completion date set for next year, but Volta published results of another proof-of-concept study in August showing that using Volta VX1 maps to guide ablation procedures helped completely terminate atrial fibrillation in 88% of patients. A year after the study—and following an average of 1.3 ablation procedures per patient—89% of atrial fibrillation patients and 73% of those with any type of atrial arrhythmia demonstrated a “high freedom” from their conditions.
With the new influx of series B funding, Volta will be able to continue supporting the aforementioned international trial of the technology and other studies of VX1 while also preparing for a full-scale commercial launch in the U.S. and pursuing additional regulatory approvals around the globe. Plus, the company said in Thursday’s announcement, some of the funds will go toward expanding its portfolio beyond VX1.
Alongside the funding news, Volta also tapped a new finance chief. Its new CFO is John Slump, who co-founded Farapulse, the pulsed field ablation tech maker that was acquired by Boston Scientific for $295 million in 2021. Slump has also served as CFO of Attune Medical and, most recently, Surgical Innovation Associates, which is set to be acquired by Integra LifeSciences in a $140 million deal inked last month.