Sonitus Medical raised $25m in its series D round led by venture capital firm Abingworth.
The $5.5m Wolverine Venture Fund, managed by students at The Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the US-based University of Michigan Ross School of Business, has reinvested in the consortium backing local medical device company Sonitus Medical.
Sonitus Medical raised $25m in its series D round led by venture capital firm Abingworth.
Sonitus said all other current venture backers joined the D round. Its website lists its investors as including Novartis Venture Funds, the CIA’s quasi-corporate venturing unit In-Q-Tel, and venture firms Aberdare Ventures, Arboretum Ventures and RWI Ventures.
The Wolverine Venture Fund first invested in Sonitus in March 2011. A regulatory filing said Sonitus raised $22m at that C round following $13.5m in September 2008.
Amir Abolfathi, chief executive of Sonitus Medical, said: "The Wolverine Venture Fund is part of a strong group of investors with an impressive track record. I was amazed with the trust the University places in the students to make these investments and consider it a model more business schools should embrace to foster entrepreneurship and smart investing."
The Wolverine Venture Fund was the country’s first student-led venture fund and has invested in more than 20 companies across information technology, life sciences and alternative energy.
Erik Gordon, associate director of the Zell Lurie Institute and managing director of the Wolverine Venture Fund, said: "This round has also been a tremendous experience for the students who oversaw the process. They were not only able to see the rapid progression of a portfolio company in the past year and participate in its latest financing, but they also got to collaborate on the deal with some very good, well-established venture capital firms from around the world."
