Barely four months after being named to the board of CardiAQ Valve Technologies, Robrecht “Rob” Michiels led a group of angel investors in a $6.5 million boon for the Winchester, Mass.-based start-up.
Michiels, the former COO of CoreValve Inc. before that Irvine, Calif.-based firm’s $700 million buyout by medical device colossus Medtronic Inc. (NYSE: MDT) in February, 2009. He joined the CardiAQ board in late September. Michiels led the fundraising round with the same group of angel investors who invested in CoreValve back in 2002. Broadview Ventures also invested in the round.
The funding, which includes the conversion of all previous debt, will be used to validate CardiAQ’s technology and carry it through to initial “first-in-man” studies, according to a press release.
CardiAQ is developing a transcatheter mitral valve implant, designed to enable physicians to implant a new mitral valve within a beating heart, avoiding open-heart surgery.