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September 29, 2006
SpinalMotion Raises $20 Million to Drive Cervical and Lumbar Trials
We co-founded SpinalMotion to develop an artificial spinal disc which would overcome the major shortcoming of current offerings. KVP general partners Jim Shapiro and Dick Spalding both have board seats and KVP Venture Partner David Bradford, former Chairman of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF, has also played an active role. Today, SpinalMotion reports raising another $20 million to move its cervical and lumbar products through clinical trials. The deal was led by new investor Skyline Ventures (Steve Sullivan), who was joined by MedVentures Associates (Annette Campbell-White). Reflecting both increased market enthusiasm for the artificial disc space and company progress made since the last round, the financing was done at a significant increase in valuation. Below are excerpts from Jonathan Matsey’s article in VentureWire describing the new financing.
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Skyline Ventures has now led a $20 million deal for SpinalMotion Inc., a developer of artificial spinal discs. The SpinalMotion round was joined by another new investor, MedVentures Associates, and existing investors, Thomas Weisel Healthcare Ventures and Three Arch Partners. David Hovda, president and chief executive of SpinalMotion, said that this round was "a nice step up" in valuation, although he declined to give specific numbers.
Stephen J. Sullivan, partner at Skyline and a newly appointed director for SpinalMotion, said that his most recent investment passed muster after reviewing its management team and talking to physicians and patients who already have the device. "It was clear that this company had all these attributes," he said. And besides the 550 U.S. patients already enrolled in the trial, he said that the success that Southern Medical has had with the device was also important. "The South Africa experience is very helpful," he said.
Based in Mountain View, Calif., SpinalMotion is developing lumbar and cervical artificial discs. SpinalMotion received U.S. regulatory permission to begin trials on its Kineflex line of devices in 2005. "We started both our clinical trials last summer and now we're 70% enrolled," said Hovda. He said that he expects to finish enrollment for the lumbar device by the end of this year and for the cervical device in the first quarter of 2007.
SpinalMotion, which has 14 employees, previously raised $20.1 million in Series B financing in March 2005 led by Three Arch and joined by Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners. It also raised a $4.1 million Series A round in January 2004 from Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners.
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