fresh funding
Houston healthtech startup raises $30M to scale surgical healing gel
Houston-based healthtech startup TYBR Health has raised a $30 million Series A round to scale its B3 GEL System, which helps protect tendons from scarring after surgery.
The round was led by Minneapolis-based Vensana Capital and Cleveland-based Mutual Capital Partners, with participation from Denver-based Neovate Capital Partners and existing investors, according to a news release from the company.
TYBR Health said it plans to use the funding to broaden the B3 GEL System's clinical applications, expand commercialization and conduct studies to evaluate its ability to protect tissue and improve healing outcomes.
"Surgeons are exceptionally good at the structural repair, but the biology that follows is what determines how it heals. That part of the equation has gone largely unaddressed ... There's a shift underway across surgical specialties, from focusing almost entirely on the mechanical repair to also weighing the biological conditions that repair needs to succeed," Tim Keane, co-founder and CEO of TYBR Health, said in the news release. "This financing lets us reach more surgeons and generate the clinical evidence to move that shift forward."
As part of the financing round, Greg Banker of Vensana Capital and Liz Todia Zambory of Mutual Capital Partners will join the TYBR board, alongside independent director Aaron Smith.
"TYBR Health is addressing a gap surgeons have lived with for a long time, with a product that fits the way they already work," Zambory, principal at Mutual Capital Partners, added in the release. "We're excited to co-lead this round and support the company's growth."
TYBR was founded in 2020 and originated from the TMCi’s Biodesign fellowship and participated in the TMC's Accelerator for HealthTech. Its B3 GEL System is a flowable extracellular matrix hydrogel designed to protect tendons, ligaments, muscles, and the surrounding soft tissue while they heal from orthopedic surgery. It received FDA 510(k) clearance last June and launched an Australian clinical trial in the fall.
The B3 GEL System has been used in hand, wrist, shoulder, foot and ankle, and sports medicine procedures since it launched, according to the company, and was first used in the clinical setting earlier this year by Dr. Tammam Hanna with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.