A Medical Device Daily

Split Rock Partners (Minneapolis), a venture capital firm focused on healthcare, software, and Internet services, reported the closing of Split Rock Partners II, raising $300 million from a targeted group of institutional investors.

Fund II is the successor to a $275 million inaugural fund raised in April 2005. All of the investors from Split Rock's first fund returned as investors in the new fund.

Split Rock invests in early-stage healthcare, software and Internet services companies. In healthcare, Split Rock specializes in medical device opportunities. In software and Internet services, the firm focuses on enterprise software and business and consumer services that leverage the Internet.

"Typically we fund about 50/50 for IT and healthcare investments," Steve Schwen, Split Rock CFO, told Medical Device Daily. "But with this second round it has been 60/40, in favor of healthcare investments."

The firm's primary geographic focus is on companies based in the Upper Midwest and West Coast.

The Split Rock team has helped with the development of two medical device incubators in The Foundry and ForSight Labs (both Menlo Park, California), and will further develop them in Fund II.

In addition to these two incubators, the company has invested somewhat more than 20 medical device companies, according to its website. The list includes EBR (Sunnyvale, California), Spinetech (Edina, Minnesota), Evalve (Menlo Park, California), Entellus Medical (Maple Grove, Minnesota), Anulex (Minnetonka, Minnesota) and Ardian (Palo Alto, California).

The co-founding managing directors of Split Rock are Michael Gorman, Jim Simons, Dave Stassen and Allan Will. In conjunction with the closing of the second fund, Josh Baltzell has been promoted to managing director with an investment focus on healthcare opportunities.

"The positive response we received from our investors demonstrates strong support for Split Rock's team and investment strategy," said Gorman. "Our success in raising this fund is testimony to the talented entrepreneurs and quality co-investors with whom we have partnered. We look forward to building on that foundation with this fund."

Split Rock, with offices in Minneapolis and Menlo Park, California, was formed in June 2004 by the teams responsible for healthcare, software and Internet services investments for St. Paul Venture Capital (SPVC) and continues to manage SPVC's portfolio in those sectors. Split Rock closed its $275 million inaugural fund in April 2005.

Cohera Medical (Pittsburgh) a company developing a suite of wound management systems and surgical adhesives, reported that it has closed an insider round of financing of more than $7.6 Million.

The company said the proceeds of this transaction will support its growth through pilot clinical trials for its lead product, TissuGlu, a strong, resorbable surgical adhesive, as well as pre-clinical development of Cohera's product pipeline.

The company develops wound management products and surgical adhesives.

Cohera says it has made significant progress in developing TissuGlu since the closing of the Series A financing in July 2006 (Medical Device Daily, Aug. 11 2006).