iWalk gets $3M, launches BiOM for more amputees (Mass High Tech)
Weeks after launching a new version of its bionic ankle for above-the-knee amputees, Bedford-based iWalk Inc. hasreceived $3.1 million in debt financing from a total of nine investors, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing does not list the investors in the round, but related persons are listed as President and CEO Tim McCarthy; Vice President of Research and Development Rick Casler; Vice President of Finance Ian Vawter; Founder and CTO Hugh Herr; and directors William Doyle, founder and managing director of WFD Ventures; John Simon, managing director of General Catalyst Partners; William A. Sahlman, professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; and Paul Flanagan; managing director of Sigma Partners.
The company’s last round of funding came in January 2011, when it received $15 million in equity from Sigma Partners, General Catalyst Partners and New York-based WFD Ventures LLC.
IWalk was founded in 2006 by Herr, who lost his legs in a hiking accident. It has benefitted from tens of millions of dollars offered by the U.S. government, according to the company’s website, since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for research into bionic limbs. The company offers the BiOM, an ankle for amputees that allows them to walk without requiring as much energy as traditional prosthetics, and also with a smoother, more stable gait. In June, the company released a version of the BiOM that works with select microprocessor knees for above-the-knee amputees.