Irvine-based startup device maker Inari Medical Inc. has raised $12.4 million in a second round of venture capital funding.
The company is developing devices to treat vascular thrombosis, which happens when blood clots develop in blood vessels, such as arteries and veins, and remove emboli, or foreign material.
It plans to use the money on “continued product improvements and clinical studies” on its lead product, the FlowTriever Retrieval Aspiration System, said Chief Executive Bill Hoffman in a news release.
The funding was led by a pair of returning investors: the Newport Beach office of Versant Ventures and Menlo Park-based U.S. Venture Partners, along with Inari’s directors.
FlowTriever got marketing clearance from the Food and Drug Administration in February. The device maker said in March that FlowTriever’s first patient after commercialization was treated at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La.
FlowTriever is made up of a catheter that removes emboli from blood vessels, another catheter that facilitates the delivery, positioning and deployment of the primary catheter, and a retraction aspirator that acts as a vacuum and helps restore the patient’s blood flow.
Inari said in a news release that FlowTriever is designed to work over a 0.035-inch guide wire.
Company Chairman and Co-Founder Bob Rosenbluth said the device provides interventional doctors with an alternative to breaking down blood clots via drugs, a method known as thrombolysis or “clot busting,” which is considered highly risky for vascular thrombosis patients.
Rosenbluth cofounded Inari in 2013 under the auspices of Aliso Viejo-based medical device incubator Inceptus Medical LLC. The company received its first funding round in the amount of $4.7 million at the time, a round also led by Versant and U.S. Venture.
He was succeeded by Hoffman in the chief executive’s slot in February. Rosenbluth still serves as chairman. Hoffman previously served as president and chief executive of Houston-based Visualase Inc., a maker of minimally invasive lasers used in neurosurgery.
Ireland-based Medtronic PLC (then known as Medtronic Inc.) bought Visualase for $105 million in July 2014.
