Aliso Viejo-based Eyeonics Inc. has raised $16.5 million in a fourth round of venture capital funding and has its sights on an initial public offering this year.
“I would say definitely we’re looking at an IPO,” said Steve Naber, the eye device maker’s chief financial officer. “We’ve previously stated that we think that the second half of ’06 would be the ideal time to do that.”
If Eyeonics doesn’t go public, it is open to a possible acquisition, according to Naber. An offering would give the company “more control,” he said.
Going public “has been in our plan forever,” Chief Executive J. Andy Corley said. “We perceive this as the largest opportunity in the ophthalmic surgical space.”
Eyeonics makes replacement eye lenses for cataract patients. Within a few years, implantable intraocular lenses could be a bigger market than laser vision correction surgery, according to some analysts.
The latest round of funding brings Eyeonics’ total raised to $40 million since its 1998 start. The company expects $30 million in 2006 sales and said it’s near profitability.
“Now we have the wonderful privilege of being able to fund a massive expansion and to try and seize the moment,” Corley said.
Versant Ventures, with offices in Newport Beach and Menlo Park, led Eyeonics’ latest investment.
Prior investors Brentwood Associates, Pequot Private Equity, ABS Ventures and Entrepreneurs Fund also took part.
Eyeonics’ main product is Crystalens, an implantable lens designed to provide “natural vision” after cataract surgery. Crystalens, which has been on the market for about two years, uses the eye’s muscle to move back and forth and lessens dependence on contact lenses or glasses.
Some 35,000 Crystalenses have been implanted, according to the company.
Eyeonics is planning to use its reloaded war chest to battle with several big competitors. Rivals,and potential suitors,include Advanced Medical Optics Inc. of Santa Ana, Alcon Laboratories Inc., a Nestl & #233; SA unit with an Irvine operation, and Bausch & Lomb Inc. of Rochester, N.Y.
“We have been up against large competitors, and we always have a tough time competing on distribution,” Naber said.
Adding Representatives
The company plans to add sales representatives and “clinical applications specialists” who train doctors on how to use Crystalens.
Eyeonics could be at 100 representatives and specialists at the end of the year, up from 60 today, Corley said. The company employs 100 full-time and 25 part-time workers now.
The product and executive team at Eyeonics were a draw, said Charles Warden, a Newport Beach-based Versant managing director who led the firm’s investment in the company.
“Andy Corley was known to us at Versant and had been for quite some time,” Warden said. “He was sort of part of the family.”
William Link, one of Warden’s colleagues at Versant, was Eyeonics’ first investor, making the funding through Brentwood Associates, another firm he was involved with.
“Bill Link was my old boss at Allergan,” Corley said in an interview last year.
Corley held sales and marketing positions at the Irvine drug maker.
Corley and Dr. Stuart Cumming, chief scientific officer, founded the company as C & C; Vision Inc. and changed the name to Eyeonics in 2003.
Emerald Bay Basement
The pair hooked up in late 1997, when Cumming, who spent nine years developing Crystalens in his Emerald Bay basement, was on the verge of running out of money and in need of an investor.
Corley had just sold Chiron Ophthalmics, a developer of laser eye surgery devices that he cofounded, to Bausch & Lomb.
