Date: Mar 06, 2014 Author: Brian Feldt Source: bizjournals (
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FTL Capital and Cultivation Capital chipped in last month to fund Pulse Therapeutics, the medical device company based out of the Downtown T-REx co-working space.
Pulse raised $1.3 million from three investors, including FTL and Cultivation. The third investor has not been named.
The Business Journal in February reported that Pulse had raised $1.03 million as of Feb. 6.
Cultivation Capital pitched in $250,000. As part of the deal, Cultivation Capital General Partner Bill Schmidt will join Pulse's board of directors.
FTL Capital, a St. Louis-based venture capital firm, also participated in the round. Calls to Tom Hillman, managing principal of FTL, were not immediately returned.
Schmidt said Pulse will look to tighten its focus on clinical trials while it sets a location and looks for more data points in 2014.
Meanwhile, Schmidt said, Pulse President and CEO Sean Morris, who joined the team in December after serving as president and CEO of Veniti, will be busy creating buzz for the company in advance of another funding round, which Schmidt should take place in the latter half of this year.
Pulse was founded in 2009 by Francis Creighton and Rogers Ritter, and is developing a magnet-based technology to dissolve blood clots.
Pulse's technology, officials say, could improve treatment of strokes and other diseases.
From now until 2015, Americans will have more than 1.1 million strokes, according to the American Heart Association.
Pulse officials were not immediately available for comment.
In a statement, Creighton said the funding will help bridge the gap between the company's first human clinical trials and its next steps, as Pulse looks to prove clinical validation.
To date, the company has raised nearly $6 million from investors including the St. Louis Arch Angels, the Missouri Technology Corporation and the BioGenerator, according to CrunchBase.
