Interventional robotics developer closes $5.7m seed round

Moray Medical, developers of the Coral interventional robotics platform, has completed its seed round totalling $5.7 million with the European HealthTech VC Heal Capital and several prominent angel investors, including the Angel Physicians Fund, joining the company’s investor base. 

The round was led by international medtech VC 415 CAPITAL and prior investors including key opinion leaders in the structural heart and robotics space such as Dr. Fred St. Goar, inventor of the MitralClip for mitral valve repair. The company will use the funding to continue to develop delivery, navigation, and remote user interaction for structural heart interventions. 

Dr. Christian Weiss, general partner of Heal Capital, said: “Across the landscape of innovation, creating intuitive control systems and transforming usability, are the critical catalysts to enable widespread technology adoption. The Moray Medical team is gathering the best and brightest minds to pioneer this thinking in the robotic structural heart space.”  

Moray Medical is a California-based early-stage robotics company founded by Mark Barrish and Phillip Laby. The company has invented the CoralTM System, an interventional platform for structural heart disease. Starting in the Transcatheter-Edge-to-Edge Repair (TEER) space for Mitral valve repair, Moray Medical is reducing access and orientation complexity by using a combination of robotic hardware and computational software innovation. 

Mark Barrish said: “We are excited to be teaming up with Heal Capital and our other seed investors to validate our clinical robotic TEER therapy system. Digitising the interface to interventional valve repair tools will improve precision and patient outcomes, reduce the learning curve, and expand access to care by enabling thousands of doctors to safely and efficiently repair leaky heart valves for millions of their patients.” 

The Coral system consists of a snake-like robotic catheter that is driven by a novel, digitally controlled, microfluidic system. Along with improved hardware, Moray has developed 3D augmented reality software that combines off the shelf ultrasound imaging data with a simulation of the catheter tip in a real-time digital 3D workspace. This approach enables interventionists to perform precise and intuitive movements, allowing rapid alignment within the heart chambers without disruption to existing interventional workflows.  

These features will all be delivered via a small footprint digital control interface to enable a user experience with single-handed, intuitive and high precision control over the catheter.   

Dr. Azin Parhizgar, board member at Moray Medical and venture partner at 415 CAPITAL, said: “Moray’s unique interventional robotics approach is poised to fundamentally change how interventionalists navigate 3D imaging planes for more controlled and precise delivery of lifesaving structural heart therapies and beyond.”