Apica: heart device

Irish venture capital firm Seroba Kernel has led a €3.75m investment into Apica Cardiovascular, which is developing a system to allow large therapeutic devices be placed into the inner chambers of the heart. The investment was made with Triventures, an Israeli-based venture capital company specialising in medical technology.

Apica is now moving to Ireland and will be based at the Innovation Centre in NUI Galway. Its technology and early prototypes were initially developed at Georgia Tech and Emory University in Atlanta in the US.

"The new company will leverage the extensive medical-device development expertise and much lauded med-tech 'DNA' which exists in Ireland today," said Dr Daniel O'Mahony, a partner at Seroba Kernel Life Sciences. "Apica provides an excellent example of a new medical device, which was initially conceived and developed overseas, but which is now locating to Ireland ." O'Mahony will also join the board of Apica.

Seroba Kernel invests in everything from early-stage start-ups to more developed bioscience and medical device companies.