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Okami Raises $32.5M Round

Inceptus Medical LLCโ€™s portfolio company Okami Medical Inc. announced last week that it closed on a $32.5 million funding round.

Okami, which makes minimally invasive products to control blood flows to arteries, said the financing will support the development and commercialization of its first two products, the LOBO Vascular Occlusion System and SENDERO Microcatheter.

The round was led by new investor Vensana Capital, a venture capital firm in Minnesota, joined by returning investors including U.S. Venture Partners.

Itโ€™s the first notable news to come out of the company since Rhonda Robb took over as chief executive of the Aliso Viejo-based medical device maker at the beginning of the year.

โ€œWe are honored to have the support of Vensana and our existing investors to advance these important technologies and deliver them to patients,โ€ Robb said in a statement.

โ€œWe are also grateful for the support and contributions of our employees and physician partners as we work tirelessly to build the market leader in vascular occlusion.โ€

The companyโ€™s last publicly announced financing was a $7.2 Series D round in 2020. Okami has now raised more than $40 million to date since its founding in 2017.

Tech to Treat Embolisms

Okami brought Robb on as CEO to scale and commercialize the LOBO system.

โ€œThe product has been FDA approved. It has been used, and now weโ€™re at the point of having learned all of the great properties of the device, but now weโ€™re ready to scale,โ€ Robb told the Business Journal in a previous interview.

LOBO, which stands for low-profile braided occluder, comes in four different sizes.

Occluders are used by surgeons to obstruct or reduce the rate of blood flow to arteries during operations commonly done on patients with an embolism or aneurysm.

Okamiโ€™s first and smallest occluder, the LOBO-3, received Food and Drug Administration approval in 2019, followed by approval for LOBO-5 in 2020 and approval for LOBO-7 and LOBO-9 in 2022.

LOBO features the companyโ€™s proprietary braided technology and is made up of two to three tightly braided nitinol wires that are barely visible, about one-fourth the size of a human hair.

Okami made LOBO to address โ€œthe many shortcomingsโ€ of traditional coils and vascular plugs, according to officials.

โ€œOther devices like a detachable coil may require four to five devices or more for a single vessel,โ€ Robb said.

Okami has also developed a microcatheter that received 510(k) FDA clearance this year.

The company said the SENDERO Microcatheter is โ€œdesigned for smooth delivery of interventional while providing optimal trackability through tortuous peripheral vessels.โ€

Itโ€™s intended to be used with the LOBO-3 and LOBO-5 occluders.

Okami is eyeing the U.S. first for commercialization with eventual plans to market its first two products globally.

โ€œThis product will be of benefit globally; however, given our small size today, weโ€™ll be focused in the US. first and then expanding to Europe next,โ€ Robb said.

Previous CEOโ€™s Track Record of Success

Before coming to Okami, Robb was chief operating officer of St. Paul, Minnesota-based Cardiovascular Systems Inc., a much larger company with 725 employees. By contrast, Okami last counted about 30 employees as of January.

The companyโ€™s technology and well-known founders were โ€œcombined impetusโ€ for her to join, Robb said.

She succeeded chairman of the board Robert โ€œBobโ€ Rosenbluth, who is responsible for spinning out one of Orange Countyโ€™s biggest success stories in the medical device industry as of late, Irvine-based Inari Medical Inc.

โ€œBob is an amazing innovator and human with just an incredible track record of successes,โ€ Robb said.

Okami is the second portfolio company to come out of medical device incubator Inceptus Medical, an Aliso Viejo-based firm started by Rosenbluth in 2011.

Inceptus in 2013 spun out its first portfolio company, Inari, which makes devices to remove blood clots in the veins.

Inari grew (Nasdaq: NARI) revenue by 63% to $547.5 million over the past two years and was featured in the Journalโ€™s recent fastest-growing public companies issue.

Shares in Inari have more than doubled since its initial public offering in 2020; the company counted a $2.6 billion market cap at press time.

Prior to Inceptus, Rosenbluth was a founder and CEO of Aliso Viejoโ€™s Sequent Medical, a maker of products to treat brain aneurisms, which was acquired by Terumo Medical Corp. in 2016 for $380 million.

Before Sequent, he was a founder of MicroVention, a neuroendovascular medical device maker thatโ€™s also owned by Terumo. MicroVention recently changed its name to Terumo Neuro, signifying โ€œa new chapter in the companyโ€™s evolution,โ€ according to the company.

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Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung
Sonia Chung joined the Orange County Business Journal in 2021 as their Marketing Creative Director. In her role she creates all visual content as it relates to the marketing needs for the sales and events teams. Her responsibilities include the creation of marketing materials for six annual corporate events, weekly print advertisements, sales flyers in correspondence to the editorial calendar, social media graphics, PowerPoint presentation decks, e-blasts, and maintains the online presence for Orange County Business Journalโ€™s corporate events.
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