MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Ntersol Consulting LLC, an Irvine fintech-focused software development company, has been purchased by Brazilian software development company CI&T Inc. (NYSE: CINT).
Financial details of the transaction were not immediately disclosed.
Ntersol brings over 170 U.S.-based digital specialists to CI&T, expanding CI&T’s North American operations amidst the public company’s “record growth.”
“This acquisition enhances our ability to rapidly expand our team to meet the growing demands of existing and new clients as we continue to offer world-class digital transformation and digital efficiency capabilities at speed and scale,” CI&T founder and CEO Cesar Gon said in a statement.
“By joining CI&T, we will be able to scale our offerings and tap into a global workforce to provide a full suite of capabilities and create ongoing value,” Ntersol founder and Chief Executive Tony Jenkins said in a statement.
The acquisition is expected to be complete during the fourth quarter of this year.
Jenkins, who founded Ntersol in 2018, currently serves as a partner and executive VP at CI&T. He has held VP and director roles in software development and engineering in Foothill Ranch mortgage originator loanDepot Inc. (NYSE: LDI), Costa Mesa cybersecurity company Troy Group Inc. and Irvine credit lending platform Loanz. He previously co-founded 3D imaging footwear sizing company Formalogix.
CardieX Ltd. (ASX: CDX), an Australian medtech company with executive operations in Newport Beach, has bought all the assets of Blumio Inc., a Silicon Valley-based developer of cardiovascular sensor technology.
Financial terms of the transaction were not immediately disclosed.
“Blumio’s technology has the potential to significantly increase clinical performance for CardieX’s ecosystem of heart health monitoring solutions,” CardieX said.
Blumio has been developing wearable sensor technologies that can capture a cardiovascular signal without necessitating the use of pulse pressure, officials said.
The company’s data analytics and visualization tools will enable CardieX’s wearable Conneqt Pulse and Conneqt Band devices to monitor patients’ heart activity and provide relevant insights to physicians.
As part of the acquisition, Blumio co-founder and CEO Catherine Liao will join CardieX as the company’s chief strategy officer. Blumio Head of Product and Operations Steve Braaten will assume the role of CardieX operations director.
Shares in CardieX last week were 30 cents apiece and a $38 million market cap.
The company, founded in 2005, is led by Craig Cooper, who also serves as the founder and CEO of Newport Beach medical device developer Conneqt, a subsidiary of CardieX. Cooper previously founded Irvine telecommunications company Boost Mobile and tech fund SoftBank Capital. He also worked as the host of CNBC Network’s TV show “Adventure Capitalists.”
NEW HIRES
Cognoa Inc., a Palo Alto pediatric health company, has promoted University of California, Irvine and Chapman University Professor Dr. Sharief Taraman to CEO.
Taraman previously served as the company’s chief medical officer. He currently serves as a member of the medical advisory board of Irvine Unified School District and is the president of the Orange County chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Taraman also co-founded Orange-based biotech research company NTx Inc. He previously served as the division chief of neurology at pediatric healthcare system Children’s Health of Orange County and as a board member of community health information exchange initiative Orange County Partnership Regional Health Information Organization Inc.
“I am excited and honored to be tasked with leading the company at this significant stage as we gear up for commercialization of our first product,” Taraman said in a statement.
“The medical community knows unequivocally that early diagnosis of children with behavioral conditions is in the child’s and family’s best interest, but pediatricians and specialists need support.”
Cognoa aims to accelerate the time of diagnosis for autism in children from 18 months to 6
years, according to company officials. Its product, Canvas Dx, is an AI-based diagnostic device, the first to be authorized by the FDA, company officials said.
“Canvas Dx offers a remote, data-driven approach to help identify and act early on developmental concerns in primary care, alleviating wait times for specialists and streamlining what is currently an arduous journey for families seeking answers,” the company said.
Cognoa, founded in 2013, has raised $127 million to date, according to company officials.
Vialase Inc., an Aliso Viejo glaucoma-focused medtech startup, has hired executives to its board and C-suite.
The company recently appointed Tom Frinzi as executive chairman of the board, Dr. Richard Lewis as chief medical officer, Shawn O’Neil as chief commercial officer and Brendan O’Herlihy as VP, global commercial operations.
The executives will lead the company as it develops its noninvasive, image-guided femtosecond laser treatment—which aims to treat glaucoma patients.
Frinzi counts nearly 40 years of experience leading Fortune 500 companies and small- to midsize companies grow. Lewis, a glaucoma specialist and researcher, has participated in over 100 cataract and glaucoma clinical trials. He was one of the first to offer LASIK surgery. O’Neil, who the company dubs an “ophthalmic industry veteran,” counts nearly 30 years of experience commercializing products at startups and large companies. O’Herlihy has spent 30 years managing medical device manufacturing and clinical development.
Vialase, founded in 2019, has raised over $35 million to date. The company’s CEO, Tibor Juhasz, previously co-founded Irvine medtech company IntraLase, which harnessed similar laser technology. Juhasz is currently a biomedical engineering professor at University of California, Irvine.
FUNDING
ValVention Inc., an Irvine cardiovascular device company, received a $350,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The funding supports the study of ValVention’s FoldaValve, a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system, which can help restore blood flow to patients suffering from aortic valve stenosis—a disease in which the heart valve narrows and reduces blood flow to the body.
The number of patients with severe aortic stenosis is expected to rise to 3.5 million by 2050, according to ValVention officials. Existing TAVR systems have resulted in vascular injury to 6% to 8% of aortic stenosis patients, according to a study published in the Journal of America Heart Association.
Unlike standard treatments for aortic valve stenosis, the FoldaValve “is more durable and protective of the valve’s structural integrity when compared with standard crimping methods found in current TAVR systems,” company officials said.
The device originated at California Institute of Technology and was developed at University of California, Irvine by Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine Arash Kheradvar.
ValVention’s CEO, Richard Henson, co-founded the company in 2017. ValVention is one of Henson’s many Southern California-based ventures, including medical device development firm Source Scientific LLC and biosensor chip tech company PhageTech Inc.
Ivos Medical LLC, an Irvine medical device company based in University of California, Irvine’s Cove innovation center, is raising $500,000 for its pre-seed round.
The funds will help Ivos finalize its product to create commercial scale molds and develop a quality management system so the company can begin talks with the Food and Drug Administration, company officials said.
Ivos is developing a device that improves visibility during endotracheal intubation, a process in which a tube with a camera is inserted into a patient’s windpipe through the mouth to assist in breathing.
Ivos’ device blocks bodily fluids that can obscure the camera during intubation.
The company, founded last year as part of UCI’s Wayfinder program, is led by Gabriel Punsalan, who currently works as a nurse anesthetist at UCI Health. Punsalan also co-founded and leads software development company Xennial Corp., which created casino betting app Betmingo.
