Stealth Bay Area medical device maker Cala Health looks to have closed out an $18 million Series A round, according to a regulatory filing. Investors in the company include Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Lux Capital and Lightstone Ventures.
The Stanford University spinout, founded in 2014, is simply saying on its website that it’s developing “novel therapies based on recent neuroscience discoveries.” However, an alumni briefing from the Stanford Biodesign program says a little more: That it’s building a minimally invasive “wearable therapy for hand tremor.”
Cala Health was founded two years ago by Stanford Biodesign 2012 fellow Kate Rosenbluth. However, in 2013 she won a $10,000 “Boomer” award for another company, Resido Medical, that is meant to treat essential tremor – a condition prevalent among the elderly. That company also won $25,000 from a UC Berkeley startup competition. The wrist-worn device is meant to supplant the ineffectual medications currently used to treat tremors. Resido Medical is likely an earlier incarnation of Cala Health.
“Resido solves this problem through the use of a watch-like device and small brain implant to halt the tremor cycle,” one 2013 article says of the technology.
We’re waiting to hear more back from Rosenbluth, and Cala Health, to confirm more about the company.
Also listed on the filing is Mark Deem, a managing partner at Bay Area medical device incubator The Foundry. Another managing partner, Hanson Gifford, said in a phone interview that both he and Deem are partners with Lightstone Ventures, which is another investor in Cala Health. He wouldn’t elaborate on the company’s technology.
