Houston healthtech startup secures $20M Series A and NIH grant for clinical trials

A clinical-stage Houston health tech company with a novel therapeutic device has raised venture capital funding and a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

VenoStent Inc., which is currently conducting clinical trials with its bioabsorbable perivascular envelope, announced the closing of a $20 million Series A funding round co-led by Good Growth Capital and IAG Capital Partners. The two Charleston, South Carolina-based companies also led VenoStent’s 2023 Series A funding round, which closed last year at $16 million.

In addition, the company has obtained a $3.6 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the NIH, which will help fund its 200-patient multicenter randomized controlled trial in the United States.

Tim Boire, CEO and co-founder of VenoStent, describes 2024 as “a momentous year” for his company.

“In a matter of months, we launched our first clinical sites, enrolled the first patients in our large RCT, and closed our Series A with Norwest,” Boire said in a press release. “We also received the NIH grant, which allows us to conduct our trial with the highest level of quality and rigor to make it as scientifically robust and impactful for patients as possible.”

“Each of these milestones represents a major milestone for the company and collectively represents many years of intensive and successful research and development and collaboration,” he continued. “These recent milestones will propel our company into an exciting new phase.”

Tim Boire is the CEO and co-founder of VenoStent. Photo via LinkedIn

The company’s innovation, the SelfWrap, bypasses arteriovenous (AV) access sites at the time of AV fistula surgery. The device is intended to “expedite the use and increase the durability of fistula sites for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) requiring hemodialysis,” the release reads, “by mimicking the arterial environment in veins, which experience a 10-fold increase in pressure and flow during AV creation and render the veins unusable for dialysis.”

In conjunction with this investment, VenoStent announced the appointment of two new observers to its Board of Directors. Dr. Zack Scott, Norwest’s General Partner, and Dr. Ehi Akirome, an investor, bring their expertise to the growing company.

“Norwest’s investment is a tremendous validation for VenoStent, and we are thrilled to have Zack and Ehi join the company’s board of directors,” added Geoffrey Lucks, VenoStent’s COO and co-founder, in the release. “Zack and Ehi have deep knowledge of our industry, and their value-add will match Norwest’s capital and cachet dollar for dollar.”

Last year, around the same time VenoStent announced its latest funding round, the SelfWrap was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin its Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study in the United States.

“More than half a million people in the United States rely on hemodialysis for survival and require arteriovenous fistula surgery to receive treatment. However, the arteriovenous fistula procedure has a one-year failure rate of over 60%, significantly impacting survival rates and quality of life for patients,” Scott said in the release. “VenoStent’s breakthrough arteriovenous fistula technology, SelfWrap, has the potential to significantly improve these odds. We look forward to working with the VenoStent team as they demonstrate the effectiveness of this breakthrough technology to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients with CKD.”

Last summer, Boire told InnovationMap on the Houston Innovators Podcast that he plans to launch the product in 2026.