Inventor Stephen Marsh has more than 70 patents to his name, but his most recent endeavor, the Airing device – a hoseless, maskless, disposable micr0-CPAP machine for obstructive sleep apnea, may make him a household name.
Marsh and his Burlington, Mass.-based startup have already made quite a mark on medtech by running 1 of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever by a medical device company. This summer the company raised more than $1 million on Indiegogo, more than 10 times its initial goal, attracting more than 10,000 individual donors.
Marsh said the company had interest from outside investors, but going to the crowd for capital was very appealing to the team.
“We thought about the idea of having the individual users, the people who suffer from this condition, be the suppliers of the capital. We thought their return on investment would be a longer, healthier life, and that really appealed to us,” Marsh told MassDevice.com publisher Brian Johnson. “We could not have known, we are astounded, amazed, grateful. It’s completely rewarding.”
“The response showed us the need for something like this,” he added.
In this episode of DeviceTalks, we talk to Marsh about the Airing device, get his insights on inventing technology that sticks, and find out how the company pulled off such a successful crowdfunding campaign.
