Quick Take
Capstan Medical, headquartered in the Wrigley Building on Santa Cruz's Westside, is heading to its first human trials with its minimally invasive treatment for heart valve disease.
Santa Cruz-based Capstan Medical is poised to take the next step in its treatment of heart valve disease, announcing a new $110 million funding round as it prepares for patient trials next year.
The company, founded in 2020, is working on a minimally invasive solution for treating certain types of heart valve disease, which is among the leading causes of death in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Capstan is developing a new, less invasive approach that uses surgical robotics and catheter-based technology; traditional heart valve repair or replacement surgery tends to be highly invasive and requires longer recovery times.
The company expects to begin its first human trials for its mitral valve solution in early 2025, according to CEO Maggie Nixon, and is actively working on other projects that it anticipates it will bring to trial later next year. The new funding will help drive these efforts and accelerate further research development.
The funding round announced Wednesday is Series C, typically a company’s fourth and last stage of venture capital funding as it prepares to scale, enter new markets, diversify products and, in some cases, prepare for an initial public offering (IPO). The funding comes from Palo Alto-based venture capital firm Eclipse, along with support from Yu Galaxy, Intuitive Ventures and Gideon Strategic Partners.
In the past year, Capstan Medical has rapidly expanded its headquarters in the Wrigley Building on the Westside of Santa Cruz and boosted its employee count to around 75, up from around 30 last fall, when it announced its previous funding round.
“We have more than doubled our footprint in the Wrigley Building this year, allowing us to scale our engineering, testing and production capacity,” said Nixon. “This much-needed space consolidates our previously distributed teams into the same area of the building and supports our growth through 2025.”
Capstan is one of a handful of companies started by Dan Wallace, who first came to the Santa Cruz area in the 1990s. The company grew out of Occam Labs, a Santa Cruz-based medical device incubator.
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