Interventional Robotics Platform Moray Medical Completed Seed Financing Round to Radically Reduce Complexity in Heart Valve Disease Procedures
International HealthTech Investor Heal Capital joined renowned investor base
Mountain View, CA / Berlin (Germany), April 12, 2021 – Moray Medical, developers of the Coral™ interventional robotics platform, completed its seed round totalling USD 5.7 millions with the European HealthTech VC Heal Capital and several prominent angels, including the Angel Physicians Fund, joining the company’s investor base. The round was led by international MedTech VC 415 CAPITAL and prior investors include key opinion leaders in the structural heart and robotics space including the globally renowned Dr. Fred St. Goar, inventor of the MitralClip for mitral valve repair. The company will use the funding to continue transforming delivery, navigation, and remote user interaction for structural heart interventions.
“Across the landscape of innovation, creating intuitive control systems and transforming usability, are the critical catalysts to enable widespread technology adoption“, said Dr. Christian Weiss, General Partner of Heal Capital. “The Moray Medical team is gathering the best and brightest minds to pioneer this thinking in the robotic structural heart space.”
Moray Medical is a California-based early-stage robotics company founded by Mark Barrish and Phillip Laby, two pioneers of the medical robotics field. The company has invented the CoralTM System, the world‘s first interventional platform for structural heart disease. Starting in the Transcatheter-Edge-to-Edge Repair (TEER) space for Mitral valve repair, Moray Medical is radically reducing access and orientation complexity by leveraging a combination of robotic hardware and computational software innovation.
“We are excited to be teaming up with Heal Capital and our other seed investors to validate our clinical robotic TEER therapy system.“ Mr. Barrish continued: ”Digitizing the interface to interventional valve repair tools will improve precision and patient outcomes, reduce the learning curve, and expand access to care by enabling thousands of doctors to safely and efficiently repair leaky heart valves for millions of their patients.“
The Coral™ system consists of a snake-like robotic catheter that is driven by a novel, digitally controlled, microfluidic system. Along with improved hardware, Moray has developed 3D augmented reality software that combines off the shelf ultrasound imaging data with a simulation of the catheter tip in a real-time digital 3D workspace. This approach enables interventionists to perform precise and intuitive movements, allowing rapid alignment within the heart chambers without disruption to existing interventional workflows.
These advanced features will all be delivered via a radically simplified small footprint digital control interface to enable a seamless user experience with single-handed, intuitive and high precision control over the catheter.
“Moray’s unique interventional robotics approach is poised to fundamentally change how interventionalists navigate 3D imaging planes for more controlled and precise delivery of lifesaving structural heart therapies and beyond.” said Dr. Azin Parhizgar, Board Member at Moray Medical and Venture Partner at 415 CAPITAL.
By creating the next-generation interventional platform, Moray Medical is well positioned to revolutionize the structural heart market by significantly reducing operative complexity, thus democratising access to transcatheter interventions to the large patient population that could benefit from these procedures. In doing so, Moray Medical’s mission is to enable a greater number of interventionists and centres to offer high quality interventions and thus improve patient outcomes.
About Moray Medical
Moray Medical was founded by Mark Barrish and Phillip Laby, two pioneers of the surgical robotics field. Mr. Laby was principal engineer and founding member of Computer Motion (merged with Intuitive Surgical) and InTouch Health (now part of Teladoc) and helped develop robotics technologies for companies including NeoGuide and TransEnterix. Mr. Barrish’s career working with Silicon Valley medical device start-ups included building the original Intuitive Surgical patent portfolio, working with a range of med-tech entrepreneurs, managing teams, and leading the Townsend Silicon Valley Office to annual revenues of over $30M.
Media Contact
Konstanze Pflüger – press@healcaptial.com – 0049 157 806 096 91