MediVed Innovations, the three-year-old medical devices maker in which Manipal Education & Medical Group is a strategic investor, is close to raising a second round of $5 million from two strategic investors. VCCircle has learnt that one of the investors could be Trivitron Healthcare, a medical technology company with over 400 products catering to 15 specialty areas.
The Manipal Group-backed MediVed operates in the space of cardiac implantable devices and makes pacemakers, leads, programmers, PSA, adapters and accessories from its facility in Whitefield suburb in Bangalore.
Manipal Group holds 37% in the firm and Dr Ranjan Pai, the CEO of MEMG, is on the board of MediVed, founded by Dinesh Puri, who was earlier managing director at Sarnoff Innovations and Cambridge Technology Partners. Puri was also founder and CEO of Powertel Boca, a networking company sold to Citrix in 2001, a sale that generated returns of 5x in less than three years for the investors, according to the company website detailing his profile.
While confirming the fund-raising exercise, Uday Puri, business development head, MediVed, declined to comment any further on the strategic investors. In reply to an email query, Trivitron’s G S K Velu said, “As a part of Growth plan, Trivitron is evaluating several investment opportunities. As a corporate policy we do not make comments on speculations.” Allegro Advisors and 130R Capital are advising the firm on the fund-raise.
VCCircle has learnt that Manipal Group will continue to stay on board as an investor. The education-to-healthcare group is active in incubating businesses by backing professional teams. Ecron Acunova, Stempeutics and TutorVista are a few enterprises where Manipal Group is a strategic investor.
Talking to VCCircle, Puri said, the firm was one among six in the world in this space and was addressing a market opportunity of cardiac disease management estimated at $12 billion. The principle USP of the model is the cost arbitrage with its vertically integrated plant making products costing much lower than what is available in the rest of the world. For instance, a MediVed pacemaker would cost $1000-$3000 a piece while globally it could be as high as $5000-$8000. The company is also into contract manufacturing.
The firm plans to use the proceeds from the fund-raising primarily to increase its sales and marketing muscle, add head count and invest in the facility. MediVed, which currently has 35 employees, is looking to grow to 150 people by the fiscal end.
The company may be open to a third round in the medium term when it looks at diversifying into other therapeutic areas such as neuro-stimulation. At present, it is focused only on cardiac management.
The medical devices space is catching the fancy of investors. Recently, Perfint Healthcare Pvt Ltd, a Chennai-based medical equipment company, raised $7.2 million in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners. The series B round of funding also included participation from existing investors Accel Partners (India) and IDG Ventures. According to VCCEdge, there have been 19 deals in the healthcare equipment, services and technology space in India worth more than $45 million since 2005.
