St. Jude Medical founder and his Medical 21 raise $1.1m

January 17, 2020 By Sean Whooley Leave a Comment

St. Jude Medical founder Manny Villafaña’s Medical 21 filed an amendment to an SEC Form D to reveal that it raised more than $1.1 million in an equity offering.

The Minneapolis-based company raised a total of $1.14 million in a $10 million offering, leaving $8.86 million remaining to be sold, according to the SEC filing.

Medical 21 listed its use of proceeds as general working capital purposes, including the payment of salaries to officers. The company listed an estimated total of $500,000 that will be used for payments to executive officers, directors or promoters for Medical 21.

The first sale for the offering occurred on Feb. 22, 2019. Medical 21 anticipates that the offering will last for more than one year. So far, 12 investors have already participated in the offering.

Medical 21, which was unveiled in late 2017, is developing an artificial blood vessel as an alternative to harvesting blood vessels for coronary artery bypass surgeries and has already begun animal testing of the technology.

The company is using a new material developed by the University of Iowa and licensed to the company to make its artificial vessels. The material consists of cellulose graft conduits supported by a thin nitinol wire, similar to what was used in Villafaña’s previous start-up, Kips Bay Medical, which closed its doors in 2015.

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