Blue Arbor Technologies Raises $10.5M Series A Led by Ottobock

US startup Blue Arbor Technologies, which develops control technology for people with limb loss, announced on October 28 that it has closed a $10.5 million Series A round. Ottobock, the prosthetics and orthotics maker and a strategic partner of the company, led the round. The valuation was not disclosed.

The money has three purposes: completing a feasibility study of the RESTORE neuromuscular interface, filing an FDA Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application for US clinical trials of the external sensing unit (ESU) version, and starting development of a fully implantable internal sensing unit (ISU) version.

How RESTORE works

RESTORE connects a patient's peripheral nervous system directly to a robotic prosthesis, with the aim of moving the fingers, wrist and elbow independently and at the same time. Electrodes are implanted in muscles connected to nerves and pick up motor signals. A wireless sensing unit processes them and sends commands to commercially available robotic prostheses to move several joints at once.

The company says early feasibility work captured stable, high-quality motor signals for more than five years. Obtaining stable signals over time remains one of the most persistent challenges for existing and emerging approaches, it adds.

Clinical progress and regulatory status

In December last year, the first patient received the ESU procedure at the Medical University of Vienna, with electrodes placed in several sites that had undergone targeted muscle reinnervation. Within days the patient could use the system functionally with an Ottobock prosthetic hand. A second ESU procedure at the university has also succeeded.

RESTORE holds FDA Breakthrough Device Designation and has been accepted into the FDA's Total Product Life Cycle Advisory Program (TAP) pilot. It was also selected for a University of Michigan-led clinical study funded by an NIH UG3 grant, which will compare surface and implanted electrodes for prosthetic control.

Ottobock put in $5 million in February to open the Series A and form a strategic partnership, becoming a major investor with a board seat. This announcement marks the close of that round. RESTORE remains an investigational device and has not been approved for commercial sale by the FDA or any other regulator.