Versa Vascular closes $42M Series C and names a new chief executive

Versa Vascular has topped up its Series C to $42 million and appointed Bill Shields as chief executive.

The company, launched in 2020 out of the Occam Labs medtech incubator in Santa Cruz, is developing AdapTR, a transcatheter device for repairing the tricuspid valve — a repair made through a catheter rather than open-heart surgery. It is in a first-in-human study and preparing to expand clinical work into the United States.

The round closed in two parts: $27.3 million, followed by a further $15 million. Santa Cruz Ventures took part in the initial close as the only local investor.

Shields spent fifteen years at Medtronic's structural heart division, most recently running transcatheter mitral and tricuspid therapies, and before that was a senior engineer at Stryker. He succeeds founding chief executive David Hovda, who is retiring and staying on as an adviser.

Versa Vascular is the second company in the county working on catheter-based structural heart repair, alongside Capstan Medical on Mission Street. Two of them within a few miles of each other, in a field this specialised, says something about the depth of medical device engineering here that is easy to miss from outside.

Reported by Santa Cruz Works. Read the original: https://www.santacruzworks.org/news/versa-vascular-names-bill-shields-new-ceo-tops-up-series-c-to-42m