Capstan Medical has raised $110m to advance its robotic platform for cardiac disease treatment in one of the larger medtech financing rounds this year for the robotics sector.
The Series C round was led by US-based venture capital company Eclipse, with participation from existing investors Yu Galaxy and Intuitive Ventures, and new investment from Gideon Strategic Partners. The financing nearly triples the $31m secured in August 2023 in Series B, which was also led by Eclipse.
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Capstan is combining surgical robots with catheter-based technology to provide a less invasive option for open heart surgery. The US-based startup will initially target mitral valve replacement, according to its website, with funding going towards clinical work and upcoming pivotal trials.
The company said in a statement: “Capstan’s minimally invasive solution seeks to overcome limitations of current treatment options by bringing together novel heart valve implants and advanced catheter technology, fully enabled through a robotic platform, to treat a broader set of patients.”
Mitral valve replacement is a procedure that replaces the patient’s damaged valve with a new valve, either made from biological or mechanical structures. Capstan’s approach starts with conventional catheter placement using a guidewire.
Once in the right atrium, a robotic controller takes over to advance the catheter into the left atrium and optimise the replacement valve’s position next to the diseased mitral valve. After the valve is unsheathed, the platform “allows for precise positioning across three dimensions.”
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By GlobalDataThe company has not unveiled what the valve is made from, nor further details about the robot.
The da Vinci surgical system is currently the only US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved robotic system used for cardiac surgical procedures. Intuitive brought in revenue of around $7.1bn last year, with the company having installed more than 8,600 robots globally as of March 2024.
Intuitive’s da Vinci robot has been developed for a broad range of soft tissue indications. Capstan’s CEO Maggie Nixon said the company believes its “robotic platform with a full portfolio of implants can uniquely address the urgent needs” of patients with heart valve disease.
There are more than seven million people in the US with heart valve disease, which can include dysfunction from any of the heart’s four valves. Capstan will also target tricuspid valve replacement with its platform.
There was a landmark moment in the cardiovascular field this month when heart surgeons at the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute performed the world’s first combined robotic aortic valve replacement and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedure.
One of the most valued areas of robotics in healthcare is surgical procedures, with the surgical robotics market estimated to be worth $8.6bn in 2022 and projected to reach $10bn globally by the end of this year.
Other robotic surgery-focused financings this year include Ronovo Surgical closing a $44m Series B round and Horizon Surgical raising $30m in Series A. The biggest funding in the space remains CMR Surgical’s $600m raised in Series D in 2021, which was consolidated with a further $165m in September 2023.
