Farmington’s Avitus adds more than $1M in capital

Orthopaedic tool developer Avitus, which is based at the UConn Health campus in Farmington, said it has raised more than $1 million in capital from the federal government and Connecticut Innovations.

The 2011 startup, which moved to Connecticut a year ago from Maryland, will use the capital to apply for marketing clearance from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for its bone-graft harvesting device, the Avitus Harvester, and complete a pilot launch of the product.

Of the total, $750,000 comes from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Connecticut Innovations and an unnamed private investor chipped in an additional $300,000.

Avitus said it is seeking an additional $350,000 from other investors to close its Series A round.

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CI has now invested a total of $500,000 in the company. Its initial investment was what brought Avitus to Connecticut in late 2013, CEO Neil Shah said in an interview earlier this year.