Anaconda Biomed closes $56m round to fund stroke thrombectomy trial
Anaconda Biomed has closed a $56 million financing round to advance its proprietary Funnel Catheter platform for mechanical thrombectomy in ischaemic stroke. The round was led by Omega Funds and included new investor Spain's FOCO co-investment fund, managed by COFIDES, alongside returning backers Asabys Partners, Ysios Capital, and CDTI through its SICC Innvierte vehicle.
The proceeds will be directed primarily at completing the ATHENA pivotal investigational device exemption (IDE) study, a prospective randomised trial enrolling 327 subjects to evaluate the safety and performance of the ANA Funnel Catheter in large vessel occlusive disease. Successful completion of ATHENA would support a US regulatory submission; the device is currently restricted to investigational use in the United States, though the ANA5 model holds CE mark approval in Europe.
The technology
Anaconda's Funnel Catheter platform combines aspiration power with flow-arrest and flow-reversal mechanisms, a combination the company says can reduce downstream embolisation during clot retrieval. Conventional thrombectomy approaches often face the problem of clot fragmentation producing distal emboli, which can cause secondary vessel occlusions. Anaconda's stated aim is to capture microemboli before they migrate, supporting more complete reperfusion and potentially reducing the number of device passes needed per procedure.
The product portfolio is expanding beyond the funnel catheter itself to include stent retrievers, sheaths, and guidewires. Named variants include the ANA5, ANA6, ANA8, and the Conda stent retriever. The company manufactures in-house at a facility on the outskirts of Barcelona, a configuration it says gives it tight control over iterative development and process trade secrets.
Trent Reutiman, chief executive of Anaconda, said the funding "will ensure that the company has the required resources to complete the clinical and regulatory requirements" for its stroke portfolio. Claudio Nessi, managing director at Omega Funds, described the ischaemic stroke market as "large and growing" and said the company has the technology and team needed to establish itself in interventional neurovascular devices.
Market context
The commercial opportunity in stroke intervention is substantial but the competitive field is active. Anaconda estimates that roughly 270,000 mechanical thrombectomy procedures were performed globally in 2026, representing a fraction of the estimated addressable pool: strokes account for seven million deaths annually, of which approximately 65% are ischaemic, and only around 30% of eligible patients currently receive mechanical thrombectomy. That penetration gap is the primary growth argument, though realising it depends on expanding catheter lab capacity and trained neurointerventional teams in lower-resource settings.
Established players in the neurovascular thrombectomy space include Medtronic, Stryker, and Penumbra, each with approved aspiration and stent-retriever systems and substantial installed-base advantages. Anaconda's differentiation claim rests on the combined flow-arrest and aspiration design, which the company positions as a step beyond existing large-bore aspiration catheters. Independent validation of that claim will require the full ATHENA dataset.
The round's European investor composition, including two Spanish public-backed vehicles, reflects the company's dual-continent presence and the growing appetite among Iberian life sciences funds for medtech in high-volume procedural categories. With the ATHENA trial under way and a CE-marked product already generating European data, near-term milestones to watch include trial enrolment completion, interim safety readouts, and any move toward a pre-submission meeting with the FDA.